DENVER - In light of multiple harassment allegations against Colorado lawmakers, their colleagues took the first steps Friday towards changing Capitol culture and finding overall solutions.
The first step: Hire a human resources person for the legislature - a new role. Members of the Executive Committee of the Legislative Council voted unanimously to create the position.
“It is odd with so many people working in this building, we should have an HR person,” said House Speaker Crisanta Duran (D-Denver). “Today we took meaningful steps to hire an HR person immediately. And this is also important because the session is just around the corner."
"Just going to be a couple of weeks before we have several aids, interns, legislators, members of the press who are going to be here on a regular basis, and we want to make sure if anybody ever feels uncomfortable that they know who they can go to be able to get the help they need,” he continued.
The Committee also voted to hire an independent consultant to review the legislature’s workplace harassment policy.
Lawmakers indicated they wanted the process to start quickly and set a deadline of Jan. 3 for bids.
That's exactly one week before the start of the 2018 legislative session.
Expectations are this person or company will interview victims, advocates, legislators and staff to develop a set of best practices.
“This is a first step because we're looking at reviewing a policy that's been for a long time," said Senate President Kevin Grantham (R-Canon City). "We're being told it's got some strengths; it's got some weaknesses, so we want some independent folks to come in from the outside and tell us here's where you can bolster it. Here's where you could make it better.”
“How we do we make it a better safer workplace environment for legislators, for aides, for interns for non-partisan staff, for lobbyists, for everybody that comes in -- even the press -- we want to make this a better environment,” he continued,
Lawmakers also voted to conduct yearly harassment prevention training for everyone who works at the Capitol. Training previously took place every two years.
Today’s meeting didn’t allow for public comment or questions -- something attorney Alan Kennedy-Shaffer said was wrong.
He represents Thomas Cavaness, who has accused Rep. Paul Resenthal (D-Denver) of inappropriate touching.
“I believe that the victims need to be given a chance to weigh in,” Kennedy-Shaffer said. “The public needs to be given a chance to weigh in on how we improve the sexual harassment policy and protections of victims at the legislature.”
Kennedy-Shaffer is also running for a seat in the Colorado Senate. If he wins, he would replace Minority Leader Lucia Guzman (D-Denver) who is term-limited.
Lawmakers said input from the public and victims will come later as part of the third-party review of the Capitol’s harassment policies.
None of the changes proposed Friday will alter the way current sexual harassment investigations are being handled.
Ongoing investigations started with a report to the leaders of each chamber instead of a third-party.
