An association of legislative aides at the Colorado state Capitol is demanding the resignation of state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, D-Longmont.

Jaquez Lewis had been stripped of her ability to hire state-paid legislative aides for repeated mistreatment of those aides.

In its demand for her resignation, the Political Workers Guild (PWG) asked the Senate Democrats to review the lawmaker’s actions and convene an ethics committee if she refuses to sign. 

That — or another method that will allow for caucus discussion and decision, the aides group said.

The duties that Jaquez Lewis had been asking her aides to conduct “shows a lack of respect and decency,” the group wrote. “It is contrary to the values of PWG, and we hope the values of the Senate Democrats, to make aides feel pressured to do tasks out of fear of retaliation.”

“Jaquez Lewis has consistently shown that she does not have the ability to manage an office, sit in a leadership role as chair, and show basic respect and decency to staff and her colleagues,” the group added. “Allowing Jaquez Lewis to stay in the Democratic Caucus is a reflection of the Caucus and their values.”

The group also asked legislative leaders to create a formal body to address grievances by aides. The group said it would help set such a body up.

“For too many years, we have been reporting incidents that have been met with few repercussions for the legislator because of the lack of accountability mechanisms in the current system,” the group said. “Too many aides have had to experience workplace violations met with little consequences, and we hope the Senate Democrats view this as an opportunity to send a clear message; that staff in the Capitol are to be respected.”

The Political Workers Guild “is an open-model minority union that represents legislative aides, campaign workers, and political organizers who want to fight for dignity in our workplaces.” It is organized under the Communications Workers of America Local 37074.

Outgoing Senate President Steve Fenberg, in a sternly-worded Dec. 3 email obtained by Colorado Politics, told Jaquez Lewis, who was reelected to her second and final term last month, that he had received “new concerns” about the senator’s treatment of her legislative aides. 

“This is now clearly a recurring issue that we have tried to address with you,” Fenberg wrote.

Colorado Public Radio had reported during the spring that four former aides complained of their pay being withheld, that the senator set unreasonable work schedules and otherwise prohibited them from interacting with other people “in the Democratic sphere.”

She was removed from a bill dealing with wage theft during the 2024 session as a consequence of that behavior and barred from using Senate partisan staff to help her hire aides. Last January, she was stripped of her leadership of the Senate Local Government and Housing Committee by Senate Majority Leader Robert Rodriguez, a Democrat from Denver.

Fenberg said the problems dated back to the 2023 interim, but that he has continued to receive concerns about how Jaquez Lewis treats her aides. 

According to the  Colorado Sun, a workplace misconduct complaint filed on Nov. 15 with the Office of Legislative Workplace Relations alleged she paid an aide, who was a Hispanic man, to do landscaping work and tend bar, and that she paid him with a campaign check. She did not report those expenditures in her campaign finance reports. She also paid the aide to knock on doors for an Adams County commissioner candidate in the June primary who faced off against the wife of one of Jaquez Lewis’ legislative rivals, according to reports.  

“Out of respect to those employees’ privacy, I do not wish to comment in detail on HR matters,” Jaquez Lewis told the Sun. “I will note that all campaign work by my staff this cycle was the choice of those individuals and was fully compensated. That compensation is reflected in checks that they were paid. I regret that there was an oversight in filing these payments in TRACER. I am amending the reports to reflect these payments.”

The lawmaker has not yet done so.

The legislative rival is believed to be Sen. Kyle Mullica, D-Northglenn, whose wife, Julie, was elected to the Adams County Board of County Commissioners in November.

The aides association called the recent incidents a clear violation of state law for campaign finance reporting, adding she had asked one of her aides to sign a nondisclosure agreement, which is prohibited by a state law passed last year, one that Jaquez Lewis and the rest of the Senate voted for unanimously.

Fenberg has cut off Jaquez Lewis’ state-paid legislative aide hours.

“It is imperative that you do not engage in any behavior that could be reasonably perceived as retaliatory in nature towards past legislative aides or interns, legislative aides in the building, staff, or Senators. Engaging in any retaliatory behavior may constitute a violation of the Workplace Expectations policy,” the president said. 

Jaquez Lewis can use campaign funds to pay aides during the 2025 session. She easily won her reelection bid in November. As of Oct. 28, she had just over $19,000 left in her campaign account. 

Jaquez Lewis is one of the more progressive members of the Senate Democratic caucus, sponsoring legislation on gun restrictions. She also pushed for a ban on new oil and gas drilling. In 2023, she sponsored the bill that originally intended to ban the carrying of firearms in almost any public place, although that measure was substantially watered down in its trip through the Colorado General Assembly.

Jaquez Lewis has not responded to a request for comment as of Saturday afternoon.