{"id":213,"date":"2025-07-09T11:54:26","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T11:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/?p=213"},"modified":"2025-07-10T11:09:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T11:09:49","slug":"rep-weinberg-drops-bid-for-leadership-amid-allegations-of-impropriety-its-progress-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/09\/rep-weinberg-drops-bid-for-leadership-amid-allegations-of-impropriety-its-progress-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Rep. Weinberg drops bid for leadership amid allegations of impropriety. It\u2019s progress. (Opinion)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do not despair about Rep. Ron Weinberg\u2019s gross behavior, but rejoice that brave women came forward to share their experiences<\/a> and quickly shut down his political advancement.<\/p>\n

Do I know for certain that Heather Booth, an elected school board member from Elizabeth, and Jacqueline Anderson, the former vice chair of the Mesa County Republican Party are telling the truth in their letter recounting Weinberg\u2019s inappropriate remarks? No, but if #MeToo taught us anything, it\u2019s that the cost of speaking up in politics is high, and remaining silent is rewarded. These brave women appear to have no motive other than to do the right thing by coming forward. Also, others witnessed the remarks.<\/p>\n

Weinberg has denied that he made sexual remarks to the women and has hired an attorney.<\/p>\n

However, he also quickly stepped down from his bid for a leadership position for Colorado House Republicans. This is progress, even though House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese did not use her position of influence to pressure him to drop his bid.<\/p>\n

The #MeToo movement hit Colorado\u2019s state Capitol hard in 2017, culminating in the unprecedented ouster of one lawmaker \u2013 Rep. Steve Lebsock<\/a> \u2013 who was accused of making unwanted sexual advances to interns and another lawmaker. However, few people remember that two other lawmakers faced a reckoning for their bad behavior and that one of them remained in office and served out his term as if nothing had happened. Rumors about the other lawmaker\u2019s bad behavior swirled, but nothing else came to the surface.<\/p>\n

At the time, I wrote a column describing working at the Capitol as a \u201cgauntlet of sexual harassment:\u201d unwanted advances, alcohol-fueled inappropriate remarks, and just plain old sexism. The worst part was the complete lack of accountability for elected officials. There was no human resources department to consider a complaint, and while accountable to the public, politicians seemed secure in their knowledge that no one would dare to speak out.<\/p>\n

But that has changed.<\/p>\n

The Colorado General Assembly now has a robust process for considering complaints. In the wake of the Lebsock saga, lawmakers created \u201cworkplace expectations\u201d to give employers and employees at the Capitol standards. The House and Senate ethics committees have investigated everything from lawmakers driving drunk<\/a> or appearing at events intoxicated<\/a> to a senator\u2019s mistreatment of her staff<\/a> and subsequent creation of a fake letter of support.<\/p>\n

There are holes in the safety net. The ethics committee doesn\u2019t have purview over the complaints about Weinberg \u2013 the events happened before the man was elected to the Colorado House to represent District 51 in Larimer County.<\/p>\n

Despite those holes, accountability continues to come for Colorado lawmakers who behave badly. Yes, voters always have elections to hold elected officials responsible for their choices, but voters can’t exercise that power if they aren’t informed. Formal investigations help empower people.<\/p>\n

No one is circling the wagons to defend Weinberg, or sitting idly by hoping the allegations are forgotten.<\/p>\n

The process is not perfect. Bad behavior will continue.<\/p>\n

But women and men now know they don\u2019t have to tolerate obscenity. The women who spoke up have their own power in this state, and I applaud them for using their positions to ensure other women don\u2019t suffer the nonsense Weinberg spewed their way.<\/p>\n

Megan Schrader is the opinion editor of The Denver Post.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more. <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online<\/a> or check out our guidelines<\/a> for how to submit by email or mail.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Updated July 9, 2025 at 11:14 a.m.<\/strong> Due to an editor’s error, this column was updated to reflect the fact that the House ethics policy does apply to journalists and lobbyists. The column was also updated to show that Pugliese did not pressure Weinberg to drop his bid for a leadership role.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do not despair about Rep. Ron Weinberg\u2019s gross behavior, but rejoice that brave women came forward to share their experiences and quickly shut down his political advancement. Do I know for certain that Heather Booth, an elected school board member from Elizabeth, and Jacqueline Anderson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}