“There is a cultural shift happening,” Colorado House Speaker Crisanta Duran of Denver tweeted the day Rep. Steve Lebsock was expelled from the  legislature, the second state lawmaker nationally to be swept away by the #MeToo tide.

Lebsock quickly left the building. Thanks, Steve, said no one. It was an agonizing seven hours of testimony about his behavior toward women, continuing after he was accused of sexual harassment. Several legislators urged him to quit, to spare himself and the chamber the ordeal of having to deal with it. The number of accusers, the number of allegations and the number of times Lebsock sought to retaliate ultimately delivered a landslide vote against him.

This shift Duran tweets of is more like an earthquake, one that’s unsteady in the political arena, a place where people abuse power but one where facts also get folded into origami and presented as something else.

When he said/she said accusations are made, a cloud of doubt hangs over everyone and that’s fair to no one.

Two blocks west of the Capitol at Denver’s City and County Building, the same week Lebsock was facing expulsion, Mayor Michael Hancock saw his political star overshadowed recently by his own 6-year-old text messages.

Unlike Lebsock, the mayor acknowledged his bad judgment in sending sexually suggestive texts to a Denver detective who worked then as his body guard. He had supported Detective Leslie Branch-Wise when she accused another member of his staff of sexual harassment the same year as he was telling her how hot she looked. Neither side says he touched her, but she called his sexually charged attention crushing.

For Hancock, time and voters will be his judge. His re-election day won’t happen until 2019, the only recourse for those such as the Denver police union who want him gone.

Beyond voters, sexual harassment at the Capitol lacks a process that’s fair in determining who is a predator, who has bad judgment, who flirts badly or who has determined enemies.

In politics, everyone has enemies. The way the legislature arrives at is decision on sexual harassment is a disservice to those who speak up, as well.

Here’s how it works now.

One outside investigator talks to everyone, looks at evidence, then makes the determination on credibility, a low standard of who is “less-likely” or “more-likely” to be telling the truth. That’s not guilty or innocent. The investigator isn’t determining if the allegations amount to sexual harassment.

That’s the “employer’s” job in such cases. In this case, the employer is us, the taxpayers, the citizens of the state. And we elected legislators to represent us as jurors in this court of opinion.

This was not a court of law. Reading emails from witnesses. as happened on the House floor, wouldn’t pass as testimony. Nearly the entire room would have been forced to recuse themselves for conflicts of interest.

During the run-up to the expulsion, Senate Republicans asked Denver District Attorney Beth McCann, a former Democratic House member, to step in and investigate whether sexual assault laws would apply. House Republicans wanted to hold legislative hearings to question witnesses and to weigh political conflicts of interest before rendering a decision on credibility and fairness.

Only in extremely cases do demeaning remarks and coercing someone for sex rise to the criminal level. Those offenses are tried in civil court and in the public arena. No one goes to jail for telling a dirty joke.

In either court – opinion or law – Steve Lebsock had a fool for a client. He made his case easy to decide, 52-9.

Rep. Cole Wist, the assistant House majority leader and a skilled lawyer, likely tipped the argument against Lebsock when he said it was Lebsock’s retaliatory statements against his accusers and his outright political threats were more than enough to compound any unproven allegations against him.

But without a process that rises above politics, we’re left with tyranny, Wist also maintained

House Majority KC Becker of Boulder said that before this case, Lebsock was one of her best friends in the statehouse.

“I know it’s been imperfect,” she said to the House about the flawed process to ensure justice for all in future sexual harassment cases. “I look forward to working with all of you to change that soon.”

Accusers and accused deserve not to be doubted under the shade of politics. Both deserve the best process possible, not the one they have.

“This has been anything but the highest standard,” Lebsock told the House before it voted him out. “In fact, it’s been the lowest standard.”

He should know.

Editor’s note: This story was corrected to say the Denver City and County Building is west of the Capitol, not south.