{"id":53521,"date":"2020-06-06T00:07:30","date_gmt":"2020-06-06T06:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/independent-commission-hickenlooper-violates-states-gift-ban\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:04:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:04:59","slug":"independent-commission-hickenlooper-violates-states-gift-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/independent-commission-hickenlooper-violates-states-gift-ban\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent commission: Hickenlooper violates state\u2019s gift ban"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Former
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper speaks to reporters on Aug. 22, 2019, the day he announced he was running for U.S. Senate.<\/span>Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper violated the state\u2019s constitutional gift ban by accepting private flights aboard company jets owned by his friends and during an overseas trip, an ethics panel decided Friday.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission decided his flight aboard a plane owned by MDC Holdings, a Colorado-based homebuilder led by top political donor Larry Mizel, and a pair of private dinners related to the USS Colorado celebration in Connecticut amounted to a violation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we allow this kind of special privately financed treatment for elected officials, it just accentuates the cynicism in the public that led to Amendment 41,\u201d said Bill Leone, a commission member and a former U.S. attorney.<\/p>\n

The commission voted unanimously to reject a second element of the complaint about a private flight Hickenlooper took from New Jersey to Colorado because it qualified as a gift from a friend. He rode on a plane owned by a company connected to Ken Tuchman, a billionaire technology entrepreneur.<\/p>\n

One of the commissioners said Hickenlooper\u2019s testimony helped lead them to acquit him on that count.<\/p>\n

On a third charge, related to a flight from Texas home to Colorado aboard Kimbal Musk\u2019s private plane, the commission decided 4-1 that it didn\u2019t amount to a violation because it was a gift from a personal friend. Hickenlooper traveled to Texas to officiate Musk\u2019s wedding.<\/p>\n

Musk is the brother of billionaire Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX.<\/p>\n

In an unanimous vote, the commission found Hickenlooper in violation on a complaint that he accepted free transportation \u2013 including a ride in a Maserati limousine \u2013 and other benefits on a visit to the high-end Bilderberg meetings in Italy. Hickenlooper said he paid $1,500 to the hotel for the conference and believed it was all-inclusive for the conference. But the conference was paid for by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.<\/p>\n

The commission quickly and unanimously dismissed two complaints related to flights that Hickenlooper took aboard his chief of staff\u2019s plane. One flight went to Jackson, Wyoming, to attend an American Enterprise Institute symposium and the second to Colorado.<\/p>\n

The verdicts came after a two-day hearing on a complaint filed by a conservative organization and testimony from Hickenlooper, who snubbed a subpoena to testify the first day and the commission held him in contempt.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story that will be updated. Check the Colorado Sun\u2019s website for updates.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deliberations continue on 5 other complaints about private planes flight to Italy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53522,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,1228,481,28,29,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-ethics","tag-gov-john-hickenlooper","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53521"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88305,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53521\/revisions\/88305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53521"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}