AZ Democrat accuses fellow Latina lawmakers of 'false imprisonment' over political differences

In a fresh ethics complaint by a House Democrat, a state lawmaker is accusing fellow Democratic Latino caucus members of holding her hostage in her office for more than an hour last year over political differences.

Rep. Lydia Hernandez of Phoenix also tried to lodge a criminal complaint last month with Arizona Department of Public Safety troopers at the state Capitol about the incident, which she claims occurred after weeks of bullying, bigotry and ageism by several Democratic lawmakers. Her allegations followed a week in which another Democratic representative, Leezah Sun, resigned before an expected expulsion vote over an ethics complaint against her.

Hernandez hopes to see at least two House members and a senator kicked out of office.

But while her accusations reflect political division and turbulence in the Democratic caucus, members of that caucus don't view the situation as anything similar to Sun's.

The allegations first arose last year after the Feb. 9, 2023, office incident. State House of Representatives attorneys reviewed her allegations and interviewed several lawmakers last year as part of a workplace harassment investigation. The lawyers dismissed the complaint for lack of evidence while concluding Hernandez seemed very "sincere" about her belief that harassment had occurred. That's according to a 19-page report on the investigation obtained by The Arizona Republic this week under state public records law.

In an interview with The Republic, Hernandez said she was stymied by House leaders in filing a complaint last year with the House Ethics Committee and would have preferred an ethics probe to the investigation that resulted. She only learned of its findings in December and doesn't agree with those findings, she said. She feels the "internal process" didn't work and launched a renewed ethics complaint in recent weeks.

On Jan. 18, she emailed a two-page complaint to House Ethics Committee Chair Rep. Joseph Chaplik, which she shared with The Republic. She filed an official, signed and notarized complaint with Chaplik on Feb. 1 that was released along with her supplemental material on Wednesday.

In late January, she gave her story to Arizona Department of Public Safety officers, focusing on what she called the "false imprisonment" in her office by state Sen. Anna Hernandez and Reps. Mariana Sandoval and Lorena Austin. She asked for criminal charges but the agency rejected the idea. She plans to file a separate complaint in the state Senate against Anna Hernandez.

Her allegations weave a tale of intraparty squabbles and supposed backstabbing by former House Minority Leader Andrés Cano. Her story culminates in what she calls "false imprisonment" in her office.

"They need to learn a lesson," Lydia Hernandez said of the three women. "When we disagree, we can have debate and discussion. Not violence. Not tactics like we do in the barrio."

Yet many of Hernandez's complaints assume motivations by lawmakers that couldn't be documented. The three lawmakers rejected Hernandez's perception of events when questioned last year by investigators, records show.

"What it seems to me," Anna Hernandez told The Republic, "it just shows this a very strenuous and stressful environment for some individuals."

Conservative Democrat finds trouble

Lydia Hernandez's ties to the Latino community in metro Phoenix run deep, from helping to organize voter registration drives in the 2000s to her 21 years on the governing board of Maryvale's Cartwright Elementary School District. West Valley voters elected her and Martin Quezada to the state House of Representatives in 2012.

By then, Hernandez had already gained attention in the community for her political work, as well as her personal troubles. When she was a candidate for a legislative appointment in 2009, newspaper accounts noted she had been briefly detained in 1999 on suspicion of human trafficking. She had simply picked up two people who looked like they needed a ride, she said at the time and was never charged.

But Quezada, an avowed progressive, beat Hernandez out of a Senate seat in 2014 and again in 2016. It created a long-lasting rivalry.

Hernandez, who is anti-abortion, has faced criticism over some right-leaning political opinions and previous endorsement of former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. In 2016, she and Quezada battled publicly on social media over election law, with Hernandez arguing in support of Arizona's anti-ballot-harvesting law.

In 2018, Hernandez accused a Texas school district official of "groping" a person at a Mexican American School Board Members of America conference and throwing a drink at her. The official denied her claims, and the education group supported him, claiming in a subsequent letter that Hernandez's allegations were "poison" and that she had caused a "public scene" at the event by insisting falsely she was a voting member of the group.

Voters in Glendale and west Phoenix put her in the Legislature again in 2022.

At the start of last year, Hernandez's peers liked her enough to elect her as co-chair of the Arizona Latino Legislative Caucus, made up of a bipartisan, informal group of lawmakers. Anna Hernandez also served as co-chair.

But Lydia Hernandez said she soon found the political atmosphere among Democrats had changed. A younger, more progressive wing was dominant, she said, and they told her: "Somebody like me doesn't fit in."

Alleged discrimination, harassment

In her complaints, Hernandez reported grievances against members including Cano, Sandoval, Austin, Anna Hernandez, and two other representatives: Cesar Aguilar and Analise Ortiz.

Cano instructed other members to "roll" her, meaning to block her ability to pass legislation and generally treat her "poorly," Hernandez alleged. Cano, who resigned last year halfway through his term to pursue a master's degree at the Harvard Kennedy School, denied her claims.

Questions or comments about policies: Here's how to contact your members of Arizona Legislature

According to Hernandez, who's 55, the group often touted their relative youth as a strength, which she believed was to make her feel "different." She reported that Aguilar once allegedly made a potential reference to bags under Hernandez's eyes. She said Sandoval asked her why she's a Catholic, and once put a Mexican flag on her desk, which Hernandez took as a sign that Sandoval was mocking her.

Hernandez claimed other Latino caucus members were jealous of her ability to speak Spanish: "She inferred that this jealousy resulted in hostility and disparate treatment towards her by some of the members," attorneys wrote in the workplace investigation report.

Hernandez blamed Sandoval, a first-term lawmaker whose district includes parts of the West Valley and Yuma, as the worst harasser. Sandoval was "guided by Quezada," Hernandez told The Republic. Over the course of weeks early last year, she repeatedly taunted, "threatened," and yelled at Hernandez and routinely burst into her office unannounced, according to Hernandez, who alleges the treatment caused her "mental, emotional, and physical distress."

Sandoval did not return multiple requests for comment on this story.

Tense office meeting

The cause of much of the tension described by Hernandez was over her leadership of the Latino caucus. As Hernandez related to The Republic, other caucus members found she was not sufficiently proactive in her support of the LGBTQ+ community and berated her for supporting a Republican bill that would have required emergency medical care for fetuses born alive during intended abortions.

On Feb. 9, 2023, the four executive leaders of the Latino caucus — Lydia Hernandez, Anna Hernandez, Sandoval and Austin — met in Lydia Hernandez's small office on the third floor of the House building to talk about the caucus's goals.

"It escalated," Lydia Hernandez said. "It got out of hand."

Hernandez said the three women forcefully tried to convince her to let them lead the group despite her position as co-chair, and she believed a physical fight was about to erupt. After an hour, Hernandez said she announced she was late to a school board meeting and stood up to leave. The three lawmakers also stood up menacingly, she said. She described how Sandoval blocked the door while Austin and Anna Hernandez maneuvered next to her. They told her she couldn't leave until she agreed to support their agenda, she said.

They kept her in the office for about a half-hour after that until she caved to their demands, Hernandez told The Republic.

Hernandez said the group had another unpleasant meeting a few days later, and then she stopped meeting with the caucus. She eventually took her allegations to House Speaker Ben Toma, who agreed to move forward with the workplace investigation in May 2023.

Hernandez found an ally in former Rep. Leezah Sun, the subject of an ethics complaint filed in November by House Democratic leaders. Sun claimed as part of her defense that other Democrats were out to get her. Unlike Hernandez, Sun believed she was more progressive than her alleged foes.

In materials she gave House investigators, Hernandez wrote Sun had claimed she was "bullied" in the House and was supporting Hernandez because "she is afraid of this group."

Even if that's true, however, the ethics investigation found Sun showed a pattern of threatening people and abusing her power of office. She resigned Jan. 31.

Hernandez said she had a lengthy defense of Sun she was prepared to read on the House floor if lawmakers had motioned to expel Sun.

Investigators 'cannot conclude' Hernandez's treatment amounted to abuse

House Rules attorneys found in their investigation that the state House can be contentious.

It was clear that Sandoval and Hernandez had very different "politics and personalities," and investigators acknowledged the two were "regularly in conflict." She told them Hernandez's leadership of the Latino caucus was "inflexible" and like a "dictatorship."

Sandoval agreed the Feb. 9, 2023, office meeting was heated and that her voice can be "loud," the investigative report stated. It continued: "Investigators were left with the impression that she could be potentially animated, loud, and passionate under the right circumstances."

Yet Sandoval, Anna Hernandez and Austin all denied their demeanor had been threatening or that they had blocked her from leaving the office. Along with Aguilar and Ortiz, they felt Hernandez had misconstrued their words and actions over time.

"Considering the interviews and evidence as a whole, the investigators cannot conclude that a reasonable person would also objectively consider the workplace hostile or abusive based on the corroborated facts presented here," the report states.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Bart Graves confirmed state troopers met with Hernandez on Jan. 25 and heard about the office incident, but the investigation went no further.

"During this meeting, it was determined that there was no evidence of a crime occurring," Graves said. "Because of this, no report was filed with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office or any other prosecutorial agency."

"Nobody held her against her will," Anna Hernandez told The Republic. "I'm not sure why this is still an ongoing situation."

Cano, in a statement sent to The Republic, said the investigation's findings speak for themselves.

"Last year's independent review by House attorneys confirmed that I had no involvement with the false and hurtful statements cited in an internal complaint by my former colleague," he said.

Chaplik hasn't yet said what he will do with the ethics complaint.

On Wednesday, he instructed the three other members of the Ethics Committee to review all of the material submitted in the case, noting the ethics complaint made essentially the same allegations as last year's workplace complaint.

Current House Democratic Leader Rep. Lupe Contreras declined to comment on Hernandez's allegations and the ethics complaint.

"This matter is in the hand of the Ethics Chair," said House Democratic spokesman Robbie Sherwood. "They respect his process and don't think it would be appropriate to comment while it's pending."

Reach the reporter at rstern@arizonarepublic.com or 480-276-3237. Follow him on X @raystern.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Lydia Hernandez hits fellow AZ Dems with ethics, criminal complaints