Pat Schroeder, a longtime former congresswoman from Denver, has targeted Colorado lieutenant governor candidate Lang Sias in a newspaper opinion piece that brings up the Tailhook scandal 27 years ago.

Schroeder represented Denver in the U.S. House of Representatives when the Tailhook sex scandal unfolded after a Navy pilots’ convention in Las Vegas in 1991. Sias, the running mate of Republican gubernatorial nominee Walker Stapleton, was one of 4,000 attendees at the convention where about 100 other Navy and Marine pilots were accused of sexual misconduct.

Sias was never accused of misconduct. But in an op-ed piece in The Denver Post on Wednesday, Schroeder argues that Sias – simply by being at Tailhook – has much to answer for in the era of #MeToo.

“Coloradans will have to ask themselves if they share the values of a man who used taxpayer dollars to attend a drunken melee that was historically marred by repeated acts of sexual violence,” Schroeder wrote.

“We also know Sias has been quoted saying, ‘While at Tailhook, I engaged in no improper or illegal activity whatsoever, nor did I witness any such activity by my fellow naval aviators.’ That’s the ‘Stone Wall of Silence’ in action,” she added.

Sias, a member of the state House, was a fighter pilot and Top Gun instructor in the Navy, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

In response, the Stapleton campaign said Wednesday that Democrats are tearing down a decorated serviceman without direct evidence to support their insinuations, other than attending a large event. In the aftermath of Tailhook, Sias answered questions to investigators and was never implicated by authorities.

“A guilt by association attack on a decorated combat veteran for political gain is what is wrong with politics today,” said Jerrod Dobkin, a spokesman for the Stapleton campaign. “Lang’s perfect military record speaks for itself.”

Democrats are going at the heart of Sias’ appeal to voters, a clean-cut everyman with a sterling military career as Topgun pilot and instructor.

The Tailhook connection has been used against Sias politically since he ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress in 2010, when then-Denver Post reporter Lynn Bartels (now a spokeswoman for Secretary of State Wayne Williams) reported on political efforts to implicate Sias.