February 23, 2006 09:00 AM UTC

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

The Rocky Mountain News updated the story about Sen. Deanna Hanna. The ethics panel was called by fellow Democratic Sen. Ken Gordon:

A Senate ethics committee will investigate a Democratic lawmaker’s request for “reparations” from a real estate organization that endorsed her Republican opponent in the 2004 election.

Sen. Deanna Hanna, D-Lakewood, has said she did nothing wrong by asking the group for $1,400, but the Senate minority leader, Rep. Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs, called it “extortion.”

Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, D-Denver, sought the investigation following a report last week in the Rocky Mountain News that Hanna had demanded the money from the state Association of Realtors.

Gordon said Wednesday that Hanna’s letter to the group implied that if the Realtors didn’t pay up, their issues wouldn’t be supported.

“Senator Hanna’s language – whether she was intentionally soliciting money for favorable legislative action, which would be a crime, or through some lapse of judgment has written a letter capable of misinterpretation – tends to bring the Senate into disrepute, damages the Senate’s reputation and serves to destroy the faith the public has in legislative bodies,” Gordon wrote in his complaint.

It is believed to be only the second time in legislative history that an ethics committee has been formed to investigate a lawmaker.

“I know the process. I’m prepared to go through it and in the end I think I will be vindicated,” Hanna said.