The lobbyist for Colorado’s most in-your-face gun rights group will learn Friday whether he faces an ethics investigation after a run-in with a fellow Republican over the fate of the first four gun bills introduced this session.
Joe Neville, political director for Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, said he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong when he talked to Rep. Cheri Gerou of Evergreen earlier this month.
But she said at the time she was considering filing an ethics charge against him for violating “Rule 36.” It states, in part, that lobbyists can’t try to influence legislators “by means of deceit or threat … or political reprisal.”
Gerou also said she believes the group was targeting her because of her support for civil unions.
Rocky Mountain Gun Owners is embroiled in a lawsuit filed over political mailers last year targeting fellow Republicans on civil unions.
Neville said he got a letter from legislative leaders saying Gerou had filed a complaint and they would take it up in an executive committee at 8:15 a.m. Friday.
The complaint is confidential and all Speaker Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, would do Thursday is announce that the committee was meeting in executive session “under Joint Rule 36.” The speaker said he couldn’t even say who or what the complaint involved, but the dust up was known throughout the Capitol and Neville confirmed he was the target and Gerou filed it. She declined to comment.
Neville and Gerou spoke on Feb. 15, the same day the House met in an epic session to debate the four gun bills. Gerou said she confronted the lobbyist, and told him to quit “scaring her constituents” by falsely claiming she planned to support the four gun bills. She voted against all four.
Gerou admitted she told Neville to “(beep) off.” She said he replied, “You just earned yourself another round of mailers in your district.” She said she asked the sergeants to remove Neville from the building that day because she believed he had violated Rule 36.
Neville said at the time he didn’t believe he threatened anyone, and was taken aback when Gerou started poking him in the chest. He said the mailers simply asked her constituents to call her and ask her where she stood on the gun bills
But why would Rocky Mountain Gun Owners target Gerou if she opposed the gun-control legislation?
“Think about it,” Gerou said. “This has nothing to do with guns.”
At the time, she was the only House Republican openly supporting this year’s civil unions measure. Since then, Rep. Carole Murray of Castle Rock has voted for the bill.
If the executive committee rules the complaint should proceed, a committee of senators and representatives will be appointed to review it and determine whether a violation occurred.
Ferrandino confirmed that a Rule 36 complaint was filed last year but the committee did not feel it warranted an investigation and it was dismissed. The legislature in 2009 did appoint a committee to investigate a complaint that a lobbyist violated Rule 36 by getting involved in a leadership race. The committee ruled that lobbyist Erik Groves wasn’t aware of the rule, but should have been. He was admonished.
Gerou said she had no idea Neville was the lobbyist for the group until she started saying she wanted to know who was talking about where she stood on the gun bills. Last year, the lawmaker tangled with Neville’s father, Tim, who at the time was a state senator and a fellow Jefferson County Republican. She was upset he sent Robocalls into the district about her support for the 2012 civil unions bill, which died on the House floor. She claimed he lied in his phone message.
“I left him a message and said, ‘You can send a Robo call. That’s fair game. We do that in politics. Just don’t lie to your constituents.’” Gerou said last year. “That’s what I have problem with. Lying to people is not good public policy.”
But Sen. Neville said he wasn’t lying, there were differences of opinion on what the bill did, and he disagreed with her interpretation.