Democratic lawmaker’s graphic speech irks GOP

A Democratic state senator’s graphic speech last week on sexual harassment at the Colorado Capitol is drawing anger from across the aisle, with Republicans criticizing his explicit language and alleging that the male lawmaker has on several occasions been found in a women’s restroom.

The legislator, state Sen. Daniel Kagan, D-Cherry Hills Village, said he made an honest mistake — one time — last year as a freshman member of the Senate when he entered an unmarked bathroom. He says Republicans are trying to deflect from sexual harassment allegations against their own.

“They’re more than overblowing it,” Kagan said. “They are trying to make a zeppelin out of it.”

But later Monday, Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik, RThornton, filed a formal workplace harassment complaint against Kagan alleging that she confronted him in the women’s bathroom toward the end of last year’s legislative session.

“What happened at the mike on Friday was despicable,” Senate President Kevin Grantham, R-Cañon City, told reporters earlier Monday. “I had people coming to me Friday telling me ... these are people that come to me and were visibly shaken, emotionally upset over what they heard. And coming from this individual, that is known, known to frequent, habitually … the women’s restroom.”

Kagan could not immediately be reached Monday evening to respond to the allegations from Martinez Humenik, which do not appear to claim sexual misconduct.

The spectacle is the latest turn on a roller coaster at the Capitol over sexual harassment allegations that have embroiled several lawmakers from both parties in both chambers.

Kagan’s speech Friday was part of a daily effort from Democrats to pressure Republican leadership in the Senate to allow for debate on a resolution to expel Sen. Randy Baumgardner, R-Hot Sulphur Springs, over a complaint of inappropriate sexual behavior. An outside investigation has substantiated the complaint, which Baumgardner denies.

But Kagan’s remarks — he was citing state statute — went further, describing in graphic detail different crimes that include sexual transgressions.

Martinez Humenik, who said she filed her complaint only after her Republican Senate colleague Owen Hill of Colorado Springs spoke of similar allegations, said in an interview that she confronted Kagan in the women’s restroom after she saw men’s shoes in a stall next to her and waited for Kagan to come out.

“I said, ‘What are you doing in here?’ ” Martinez Humenik told The Denver Post. She said he told her he was feeling unwell.