Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto
Copyright © 2022
SANTA FE — Daniel Ivey-Soto — a powerful state senator from Albuquerque — says the investigation into a harassment complaint filed against him has ended and will not proceed to public hearings that could lead to disciplinary action.
In a letter submitted to the on Wednesday, Ivey-Soto said a legislative ethics committee informed his attorney “the complaint is indefinitely suspended, with no further action to be taken.”
In a brief interview, Ivey-Soto, a Democrat, said he would not release the notification letter sent to his attorney “in deference to the confidentiality” provisions outlined in the Legislature’s anti-harassment policy.
State law permits a legislator to waive the confidentiality provision in writing.
The legislature itself has made no public disclosure of the results of its investigation into the complaint filed about six months ago by a lobbyist who accused Ivey-Soto of sexual harassment and abusive behavior.
Public findings are not issued unless an investigation determines there’s enough evidence to merit a hearing. But Ivey-Soto’s letter to the Journal said the complaint is not moving forward to a hearing.
“To any person who may have taken offense or felt hurt when interacting with me,” he said, “I sincerely apologize, and I am open to discussing such matters directly.”
In February, he was accused by lobbyist Marianna Anaya of groping and pinching her in 2015, and of sexual harassment and abusive behavior this year. She levied the allegations in an open letter shortly after the conclusion of a 30-day legislative session and called on Ivey-Soto to resign.
A month later, a coalition of advocacy groups accused Ivey-Soto of a pattern of abusive behavior against women, and called on his colleagues to remove him from the office if he wouldn’t step down. It wasn’t clear whether any of those allegations were examined as part of the investigation triggered by Anaya’s complaint.
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Under the legislature’s anti-harassment policy, a special counsel may be appointed to investigate complaints made against legislators. The attorney then makes a recommendation on whether there’s probable cause to support the allegations.
Ivey-Soto’s letter to the Journal does not address the attorney’s recommendation, whatever it was.
But he suggests an investigative subcommittee — a panel of state senators — did not find probable cause after evaluating the recommendation.
The “complaint, having been exhaustively investigated and fully debated by the Investigative Subcommittee, has been pending in a confidential process until a determination is made regarding whether probable cause exists to hold a public hearing on the merits,” Ivey-Soto said in the letter . “Last week, my attorney was informed that the current matter before the (Interim Legislative Ethics Committee) regarding the complaint is indefinitely suspended, with no further action to be taken.”
He added that “statutory confidentiality remains in place; those provisions have not been waived. Accordingly, there will be no official announcement that there was no finding of probable cause, meaning the matter is closed.”
Ivey-Soto — or any legislator found to have violated the anti-harassment policy — could have been subject to reprimand, censure or expulsion.
secrecy
The confidentiality surrounding the process makes it difficult to know precisely what was investigated, what the special counsel recommended or whether the investigative subcommittee of senators voted on the issue.
Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, said Ivey-Soto’s explanation in the opinion column — parts of which were read to her by a Journal reporter — is “not the full picture.” But she said the confidentiality policies prevented her from elaborating.
Levi Monagle, an attorney for Anaya, the lobbyist who filed the sexual harassment complaint, said it’s unfair that Anaya cannot speak more freely about the complaint.
“There are confidentiality rules that bind Marianna in a way that they do not bind Sen. Ivey-Soto,” Monagle said late Wednesday. “That is a clear asymmetricality in the law. We believe it’s a clear constitutional problem and it’s been a problem for the last seven months.”
allegations
Anaya is a lobbyist whose clients include the left-leaning Center for Civic Policy and ProgressNow New Mexico.
In an open letter Feb. 22, Anaya called on Ivey-Soto to resign because of sexual harassment.
Many of her allegations center on this year’s session as she sought support for a voting rights bill before a committee Ivey-Soto leads.
Anaya said the senator drank and pressured her to drink in a meeting at his office Jan. 18 and that he later — at a restaurant — whispered for her to “come closer” as they sat in a booth. She also alleged that he asked her a sexualized question about what she’d been wearing and yelled at her twice, once at the restaurant and once at the Roundhouse.
Anaya also said Ivey-Soto groped and pinched her in 2015 when she was a young congressional staffer at a reception, a matter she said she discussed with him this year. Her attorney said she was also filing a complaint under the Legislature’s anti-harassment policy.
Ivey-Soto, for his part, denied Anaya’s allegations, though he acknowledged he may have raised his voice when out of breath while climbing the stairs.
In the Journal letter, he said he has a hearing problem.
“I am often unaware of how loud I may be speaking,” Ivey-Soto said, “and there are times when I cannot fully hear what is being said to me, causing me to give non-sequitur responses.”
Policy targeted
Stewart, the Senate president per tem, said she will push for a group of legislators to get together and propose revisions to the anti-harassment policy.
The current process, she said, is “broken.”
“There are no timelines,” Stewart said. “There’s very little transparency and we tell the complainant almost nothing.”
The policy was last revised in 2018.
Allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced periodically against current and former New Mexico lawmakers in recent years — including at least one accusation of a then-lawmaker seeking sex in exchange for a vote during the 2009 session.
More recently, a legislator accused of sexual harassment in 2018 lost his reelection bid.
Ivey-Soto, a lawyer and chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, is one of the most prominent members of the Senate, known for his expertise on election administration and appetite for substantially amending bills he believes lack clarity or that he otherwise objects to.
He has represented part of Albuquerque since 2013.
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