According to KUNC Community Radio of Northern Colorado, staff at the Colorado State Senate have been forbidden from speaking to journalists about workplace issues, including sexual harassment.
Last month, an email (Feb. 2) from Senate Secretary Effie Ameen instructed: “Except for the [Senate] media staff and those employees designated by the President or the Minority Leader to represent the Senate to the media, no Senate employee, including aides, interns and volunteers may grant interviews to the press.”
Welcome to Stalinism, right here at the State Capitol, where the government would control the news.
This week, Denver City Council did an about face and said it would investigate the possibility of investigating Mayor Michael Hancock’s behavior toward Detective Leslie Branch-Wise, who has accused him of sexual harassment. Take note: It is the media which the Colorado State Senate would control that prodded the City Council to act — specifically, Tony Kovaleski of Channel 7, who broke the story, Michael Roberts of Westword, and KNUS.
Without them, the City Council would have done nothing.
Colorado Senate leader Kevin Grantham commented to the AP that while people in or around the state legislature making a complaint “should make every effort to avail themselves of the process” provided by the workplace, “at some point, and I don’t know that magic point in time, there has to be a legitimate means to find another avenue.”
Sen. Grantham is right about seeking to resolve an issue through the workplace — but when the “workplace” is the elected representatives in a democracy, the people have the right to know. Government by secrecy is the end of democratic government. Too many cases have emerged in recent months about payoffs in sexual harassment cases involving public officials about which the public was not informed. Remember, these are taxpayer dollars.
Leaders in the Colorado House also said that staff should feel comfortable speaking out.
What remains unclear from the AP report is to what extent the attempt to silence the legislature’s staff is enshrined in policy at the Colorado State Senate and House. It is a sad day indeed when the issue of Stalinism even needs to be raised in an American state legislature.
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