Colorado Rep. Mandy Lindsay defends caucus payments during ethics hearing

Colorado Rep. Mandy Lindsay told lawmakers on Friday that she did not fully understand the level of financial responsibility involved when she became co-chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and that there was an unset expectation around the accounting and organization of caucus funds.

“I did not interpret that role this way. I ran for this role to feed people, to connect us, to host fun events, to plan fun retreats,” she said. “Looking back now, obviously, I did not know what I was undertaking and did not understand the level of responsibility I was undertaking.”

Lindsay, an Aurora Democrat, made the comments during the final day of an evidentiary hearing for an ethics complaint she is facing over alleged mismanagement of caucus funds. She was the last witness to speak with the bipartisan House Ethics Committee. As caucus co-char, Lindsay is in charge of collecting member dues, leading meetings, supplying meals occasionally, and other morale boosters such as birthday cards and flower deliveries.

“We made sure everyone had breakfast and lunch all the time, and sometimes we were being really scrappy to figure out how to do it. To me, that was the end product that mattered,” she said. “I want to nurture and make everyone in the caucus feel that they are a part of something, that we have fun, that we care about each other, and that this workplace can be full of people who have meaningful relationships.”

The complaint is based on a series of reimbursements Lindsay made to herself from the caucus bank account. Some of those checks were initially written in error, she said, but the reimbursements were ultimately for thousands of dollars she spent in personal funds for caucus activities over the years.

Colorado ethics panel begins hearing over Rep. Mandy Lindsay’s handling of caucus bank account

“I’m not a bookkeeper,” she said. “But I wasn’t just willy-nilly spending and not knowing how much we had or not knowing how much (dues money) people owed.”

She said it is “abundantly clear” she did not know enough about general accounting practices. Witnesses throughout the two-day hearing said Lindsay’s actions were akin to disorganized bookkeeping, not intentional negligence.

Both Lindsay and co-chair Rep. Junie Joseph, a Boulder Democrat, described a dysfunctional relationship in their partnership. Joseph said it took months for her to access the caucus’s bank account and when she did, she noticed the seemingly suspect transactions. She said she then asked Rep. Bob Marshall, a Democrat from Highlands Ranch, to look over the bank account because of his finance experience.

“I needed a second set of eyes on it,” she said. “Rep. Lindsay and I were not having a lot of conversations, and I didn’t want it to just be me going to her. I wanted to make sure someone else looked at this.”

Marshall ended up filing the complaint against Lindsay early this year.

“I already had big issues with the caucus fund in terms of putting money in and not knowing what the hell it’s doing. I realized it was a big stinking pile of mess, but it wasn’t my mess. But Junie brought this, put it right in front of me,” he said.

Lindsay addressed the largest reimbursement check on Friday, a payment for about $6,000. She said she originally wrote the check when she thought a hotel charge for a caucus retreat in November 2024 would hit her personal card on file. She realized a few weeks later, following what she described as a tumultuous time in her personal life, that the caucus card was the one actually charged.

“I realized that I had foolishly, and crazily, misunderstood what (an email from the hotel) said,” she said. “I was horrified.”

But Lindsay kept the check as a partial reimbursement to herself for accrued costs as co-chair. She hadn’t done the hard math of totaling exactly what she was owed, she said, but she knew it was more than the cost of that hotel charge.

“Once I realized that the charge had not been made to my personal account, I was like ‘OK, well I wrote this check, what should I do?’” she said. “I believe I should have done something different about it, process-wise, but I was also owed about seven grand. And so I’m beginning this process now.”

The committee will make a final determination on the complaint during a meeting on Sept. 4. Members could dismiss it entirely or make a range of recommendations to House leadership about consequences.