The Colorado Senate Committee on Ethics told members at a committee meeting that it received an immediate resignation from Senator Hawkes Lewis on Feb. 17, 2025, and that an internal investigation concluded a letter of support attributed to a former staffer was likely not authored with that staffer’s knowledge or consent.

Committee Chair Senator Gonzales said the panel was convened under Senate Rule 43 and charged with completing a preliminary investigation within 30 days of appointment. Chair Gonzales read the committee’s timeline, noting answers and exhibits were received on Jan. 31 and additional evidentiary documents arrived as recently as the day before the meeting. She said the committee had received Senator Hawkes Lewis’s resignation by email to Senate President Coleman and Secretary of the Senate Van Moorick on the evening of Feb. 17 at 7:15 p.m.

Ed DeCicco, director of the Office of Legislative Legal Services, recounted the committee’s review of exhibits and described contact with a person identified in an exhibit as the author of a letter of support. DeCicco said a committee staff member, Anna McLean, emailed committee members after a hearing saying she had not authored the letter that bore her name and that her name had been used without her consent. DeCicco summarized the Office of Legislative Workplace Relations’ investigation and said that Director Ben Fitzsimons concluded it was “more likely than not that Ms. McLean did not write the letter of support and indeed it was done without her knowledge or consent.”

Chair Gonzales told the committee that, as a result of the investigation, she asked the Office of Legislative Legal Services to contact Senator Jacquez Lewis to verify other exhibits attributed to named individuals. DeCicco said he requested documentary evidence by Feb. 17 at 2 p.m. to substantiate that exhibits attributed to specific individuals were in fact prepared by them; as of the meeting, he said he had not heard from those witnesses in response.

Members praised committee staff and the nonpartisan teams that compiled hundreds of pages of evidence. Senator Roberts, Senator Carson and Senator Weissman each thanked staff and committee colleagues. Weissman placed the committee’s work in the context of the rule of law and the institution’s role for the state’s 6,000,000 residents, and he urged further public and institutional review of the allegations beyond the committee’s initial inquiry.

The committee discussed Senate Rule 41(a)(5), which Chair Gonzales read aloud, saying a legislative office is a trust to be performed with integrity and that members must act in ways that promote public confidence in the Senate. Chair Gonzales closed by thanking the complainants—Lee Davis, Luke Dozier, Luisa Echeverri, Laisie McGinty and Molly Stawanoga—and staff for their work in bringing the matter to the committee’s attention.

The meeting did not record any formal committee vote on penalties or further disciplinary action; the committee’s charge was to complete a preliminary investigation within the timeframe set under Senate Rule 43(c). Committee members noted that some alleged conduct could also be the subject of other legal or administrative review outside this committee’s preliminary inquiry.