(C) Arizona Mirror This story was originally published by Arizona Mirror and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Ethics committee drops complaint of Democrats bullying one of their own • Arizona Mirror [1] ['Caitlin Sievers', 'Jerod Macdonald-Evoy', 'Shondiin Silversmith', 'Shaun Griswold Sourcenm', 'More From Author', '- May', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline'] Date: 2024-05 The House Ethics Committee has dismissed a complaint that Democrats in the Arizona House of Representatives bullied one of their own. Rep. Lydia Hernandez, D-Phoenix, filed the complaint in February, accusing four of her Democratic colleagues — Cesar Aguilar and Analise Ortiz, both of Phoenix, Lorena Austin, of Mesa, and Mariana Sandoval, of Goodyear — of bullying, harassment and intimidation. In her complaint, Hernandez, who leans further to the right than most of her Democratic colleagues, accused fellow members of the Latino Caucus of generally poor treatment because she supports different policy positions. She also said they falsely imprisoned her because they allegedly refused to allow her to leave her office during a meeting last year. When Lydia Hernandez, along with Sandoval and Austin and Sen. Anna Hernandez, met in Lydia Hernandez’s office on Feb. 9, 2023, to talk about caucus goals, she said that the other three tried to force her to take a backseat to the point she was afraid that a physical fight might occur. When she got up to leave, Lydia Hernandez claimed that the other three also stood up and blocked her path, saying that she couldn’t leave until she agreed to support their goals for the caucus. But Rep. Joseph Chaplik, a Scottdale Republican and chairman of the House Ethics Committee, told Hernandez in a May 17 letter that the committee would not be pursuing her allegations. The contents of Hernandez’s ethics complaint were identical to a request for a workplace harassment investigation that she filed with House lawyers last year, Chaplik wrote, except the previous request included similar allegations of bullying against then-Minority Leader Andrés Cano, who left the legislature last year to pursue a masters degree at Harvard Kennedy School. The workplace harassment complaint was ultimately dismissed. The Ethics Committee reviewed the report that came out of the workplace harassment investigation to inform its decision on the ethics complaint, Chaplik said in a February letter about the case. In his May 17 letter, Chaplik advised Hernandez to take up any existing concerns with the House minority leader. Hernandez did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On the same day that the Ethics Committee dismissed Hernandez’s complaint, its members also nixed a complaint against Republican Rep. Austin Smith, of Surprise, for allegedly forging voter signatures on his petition to get on the July primary ballot. Shortly after the allegations of fraud were publicized, Smith dropped his campaign for reelection and resigned from his leadership position at Turning Point Action, the political campaign arm of Turning Point USA run by Charlie Kirk. but he never admitted to forging the signatures. Chaplik, along with the rest of the committee, also dismissed the complaint against Smith, saying that none of the Democrats who filed it had direct knowledge that Smith committed a crime. But in the complaint, which was made public on May 17, the Democrats pointed out that it was glaringly obvious that Smith had forged the signatures. “(I)t is apparent from the images (of the petition) that the signatures were written by the same person,” the Democrats wrote in their complaint letter. “Even someone with no handwriting analysis training can tell that they are identical handwriting. And what’s more, the handwriting of the voters’ signatures appears to be an exact match to Rep. Smith’s handwriting when he signed some of the petitions as the circulator.” In the complaint, Reps. Mae Peshlakai of Cameron, Stephanie Stahl Hamilton of Tucson, and Charles Lucking and Laura Terech, both of Phoenix, accused Smith of disorderly conduct and of “​​tarnishing the public’s perception of this institution.” Even though the ethics complaint has been dismissed, Smith could still face criminal charges of forgery from the Arizona attorney general. [END] --- [1] Url: https://azmirror.com/briefs/ethics-committee-drops-complaint-of-democrats-bullying-one-of-their-own/ Published and (C) by Arizona Mirror Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/azmirror/