The Colorado state Senate on Wednesday rejected the reappointment of the chairwoman to the state panel that handles judicial discipline but narrowly kept its vice-chair.

Needing 18 votes to confirm their reappointments to the Colorado Commission on Judicial Discipline, chairwoman Mindy Sooter came up two votes shy (19-16 against), while Jim Carpenter was approved by the same margin.

The Senate has a firm 23-12 Democratic majority.

The decision to drop Sooter from the 10-member commission comes days after a Senate committee made the rare choice to refuse confirming either gubernatorial appointee. Unlike proposed legislation that can die in a committee in either house of the General Assembly, appointments by the governor, which require approval from the full Senate, are voted on separately regardless of a committee’s recommendation, though the latter carries weight.

Sooter’s appointment ends on June 30. Gov. Jared Polis can make a new appointment of an attorney member — the discipline commission is made up of two attorneys, four citizens, two county court judges, and two district court judges — that the Senate would take up at the next legislative session.

Carpenter is a citizen member. The governor appoints the non-judicial members, while the chief justice of the Colorado Supreme Court appoints the four judges.

Sooter’s rejection came after public testimony by the former executive director to the commission who told the Senate’s judiciary committee that she allegedly was part of a broader conspiracy to whitewash years of judicial misconduct tied to a scandal that erupted in 2019.

Sooter and Carpenter strongly denied the allegations during the Senate committee hearing.

“These particular confirmations are rather unique, in that they involve all three branches of government,” Sen. Julie Gonzales, D-Denver, the chairwoman of the judiciary committee told The Denver Gazette. “I am grateful that the Senate took our oversight duties seriously.”

The scandal — an alleged quid pro quo Judicial Department contract awarded to a former official who threatened a tell-all lawsuit — resulted in the resignations of several employees and the unprecedented public censure of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan “Ben” Coats for his role in it. It also resulted in a new judicial discipline system that voters approved in November, one that greatly diminishes the role of the Supreme Court.

Sooter was named to the commission in July 2021 after Polis refused to reappoint its then-chairman Christopher Gregory, who was leading the commission’s investigation into the contract-for-silence scandal.

Gregory was later hired as the commission’s executive director. He was fired in 2024 while pressing an inquiry into dozens of district court judges who for years failed to file personal financial disclosures as required by law.

He has said his demise was politically motivated and largely tied to his public push for changes in the judicial system.

Carpenter has long political ties in Colorado and a reputation that caused Sen. Jeff Bridges to tout during Wednesday’s vote.

“There are few people I trust more in Colorado,” he said of Carpenter. “This would be a poor choice to do a reset.”

Gregory has pointed to an anonymous 330-page complaint filed with the commission and other agencies that lays out an allegedly complex and deeply rooted conspiracy devised to coverup judicial misconduct.

The complaint notes that Sooter – who told Senators that Polis recruited her for the commission appointment – offered Attorney General Phil Weiser and former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar as personal references in her application.

Salazar was with law firm Wilmer Hale at the time, where Sooter was a managing partner.

Wilmer Hale at the time was also bidding for a Judicial Department contract to investigate the alleged quid pro quo contract, which eventually went to former U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer.

The anonymous complaint also noted that Carpenter was Salazar’s senatorial campaign manager and later ran his Colorado office.

Former state Sen. Pete Lee, D-Colorado Springs, slammed Sooter and Carpenter in a letter to senators this week, a copy of which was obtained by The Denver Gazette.

In it, Lee noted that the discipline commission under Sooter and Carpenter’s leadership soft-pedaled the outcome of the financial disclosure inquiry, which resulted in only a handful of minor disciplines that were kept private.

“To impose sanctions on so few judges who failed to file their financial affidavit undermines this fundamental purpose of the judicial canons, diminishes transparency, and could allow conflicts of interest to impact court cases,” Lee wrote. “Moreover, the few judges who were sanctioned were never named and there has been no explanation from Ms. Sooter or Mr. Carpenter as to how they keep secret the findings that a judge violated a legal duty of public disclosure.”

Lee added: “Again, the credibility of our legal system is impaired by  secret accountability and judges and lawyers protecting judges and lawyers.”

Lee was chairman of a joint legislative committee looking into the scandal in 2023 when he was forced to resign amid allegations of voter fraud. Those allegations were dismissed after it was determined they were based on inaccurate information provided by the Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. But Lee was already removed from the committee’s work.

“Rejection of the current appointees and consideration of new ones is the optimal way to move forward from years of scandal while helping to restore public confidence in the integrity of our judges and the judicial system,” Lee wrote.