The Colorado Independent Ethics commission Tuesday signed off on a draft opinion, the final action it must take regarding the ethics violations they determined were committed by former Gov. John Hickenlooper.

The commission’s final report, however, is not yet available.

The vote to approve the opinion was unanimous.

The commission determined on June 5 that Hickenlooper had violated Colorado’s Amendment 41 ethics law for two of the six complaints it reviewed and voted down the other four. The commission dismissed other complaints, filed by former Republican Speaker of the House Frank McNulty and his newly-formed Public Trust Institute, either for lack of merit or because they did not meet a statute of limitations requirement. The commission fined Hickenlooper $2,750 for the violations, which are civil violations and do not carry a criminal penalty.

Hickenlooper accepted a limousine trip at the 2018 Bilderberg Meeting, which the commission determined exceeded the existing state gift limit of $59. He also accepted a private jet trip from MDC Holdings, owned by friend Larry Mizel, to the commissioning of the USS Colorado in Connecticut, also in 2018. 

McNulty, PTI  Director Suzanne Staiert and a dark money group, Unite for Colorado, launched an ad campaign on TV, radio and social media, allegedly to solicit support for a ballot measure that would have extended the statute of imitations to eight years. But the campaign never turned in any signatures for the ballot measure, although ads have continued to run past the August 3 deadline, intending to solicit support for an online petition that cannot be used for a statewide ballot measure.

The complaints came out of a series of open records requests obtained by the Republican organization America Rising, which does opposition research on Democratic candidates. At the time, Hickenlooper was considering a run for president, but decided to run for the U.S. Senate, challenging Republican Sen. Cory Gardner. The most recent poll by Morning Consult, released July 26, shows Hickenlooper leading with likely voters by six percentage points, including a 13-point lead with unaffiliated voters. 

The commission Tuesday also has before it 49 new ethics complaints, and will spend most of the day in executive session determining which, if any, will go forward to a formal investigation.