February 13, 2018 09:45 AM UTC

Second Sexual Harassment Complaint Filed Against Baumgardner

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• by: Colorado Pols

Colorado Republican Senate President Kevin Grantham says that he will not be rushed into making “snap decisions” about potential discipline for Sen. Randy Baumgardner, who has now been formally accused of sexual harassment for the second time. As KUNC’s Bente Birkeland reports:

Sen. Randy Baumgardner is now facing a second formal sexual harassment complaint at the Colorado Capitol. Megan Creeden, who served as an intern for another lawmaker, said she filed the complaint “hoping it will trigger something to happen.”

An earlier investigation into allegations against the Republican from Hot Sulphur Springs concluded that “it appears more likely than not that Baumgardner grabbed and slapped a legislative aide’s buttocks four times during the 2016 legislative session.”

Senate leadership has had the investigation’s results for about two weeks. Creeden said she made her complaint official because she has not seen Baumgardner held publicly accountable for his actions.

“All I want is for that behavior to not be something aides and interns and legislators in the future have to deal with and put up with,” Creeden said. [Pols emphasis]

We wrote yesterday about Grantham’s baffling display of foot-dragging on what has become the most prominent issue of the 2018 legislative session. Birkeland’s latest story, which was published online late Monday evening, is another damning indictment of Baumgardner’s oft-rumored behavior and Grantham’s inexplicable paralysis regarding the problem of sexual harassment under the Gold Dome. It should not be overlooked that news of the second Baumgardner complaint also came on the same day that the Denver Post reported on the completion of an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Republican State Sen. Jack Tate.

Senate Democrats have called on Baumgardner to resign from the legislature, but thus far the two-term Republican has maintained his status as a committee chairman and is still the lead sponsor of the top legislative priority for Senate Republicans (quite literally, Senate Bill 1). Grantham said on Monday that he expects to make a decision on Baumgardner’s fate by the end of this week, which would mark three weeks since he first received findings from an independent investigation into the initial complaint against Baumgardner; at this rate, it could be another month before Grantham bothers to take any action regarding the complaint against Tate.

We’ve said it before in this space, but it bears repeating: Choosing not to act is a decision in itself.