Utah News Dispatch
Facing calls to resign, Sen. Kathleen Riebe says discrimination report is ‘distorted’
Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights, speaks against HB267, a bill that would ban collective bargaining for public employees, at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Nearly a week after Utah Senate Democrats called on Sen. Kathleen Riebe to resign, she’s making a case that a discrimination inquiry against her was based more on politics than proof and “rests on a distorted record.”
Riebe’s attorney alleged in a Monday email to Utah News Dispatch and other news outlets that the investigator who conducted the outside review “blindly adopted the view of those politically opposed to Senator Riebe.”
In a letter to Senate President-elect Evan Vickers dated Nov. 8, attorney Ryan McConnell said the complaint against his client, filed by a Senate employee, came days after Riebe announced she planned to run to lead the Senate Democratic caucus.
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“Senator (Luz) Escamilla holds that post, and Senator Riebe’s challenge put it in jeopardy,” McConnell wrote to Vickers, saying most of the witnesses interviewed for the report had a stake in keeping Escamilla in the role, to which she was reelected last week. But he said nothing in the report shows the investigator accounted for those ties.
Escamilla declined to comment on the matter through a Senate spokesperson, who cited confidentiality reasons.
Also on Monday, newly released invoices shed light on the cost of the investigation. The law firm Parsons Behle & Latimer billed the Legislature $14,435, according to invoices provided to Utah News Dispatch in response to a public records request.
The Senate last week made public a thoroughly redacted version of the report that concluded there’s a likelihood Riebe’s treatment of the Senate staffer was motivated at least in part by race, national origin or ethnicity and interfered with the employee’s ability to do her job.
Riebe believed the employee’s complaint was an attempt at retribution after Riebe alleged the employee was working on another senator’s campaign, the report states, while witnesses said no formal campaign had been established. The redacted report does not show who the other senator is.
The review said Riebe acknowledged previously telling staffers that she did not want gay interns “who were coming out of the closet.” Her attorney argues in his letter to Vickers that in reality, the comment was based on concern but her accusers “recast them as bigotry.”
Outside review details discrimination complaint against a Utah Democrat
He said “in a long, confidential conversation with caucus staff, Senator Riebe explained that the Capitol can be a hard place for a young person who has just come out. She worried about their mental health. She wanted to protect them. Those who wanted her out stripped that private expression of concern of its context and turned it against her.”
Through her attorney, Riebe is asking Vickers not to impose any of the discipline handed down by his predecessor, outgoing Senate President Stuart Adams, until she has an opportunity to weigh in on the final report. Details of the four corrective actions were also redacted.
Although she was interviewed as part of the inquiry, Riebe said she hadn’t seen the findings until her colleagues voted to expel her from the caucus last week and publicly urged her to step down less than an hour before polls closed on Election Day.
Riebe says the report’s findings should have stayed confidential under the Legislature’s administrative policy.
Her attorney reiterated statements Riebe made Friday, saying she “has spent her career fighting for underrepresented groups.” He noted she has carried measures freeing up funds to better pay and retain teachers in “high-need” schools and strengthening requirements for police interrogations of minors, among others.
Riebe, an educator and former member of the Utah State Board of Education, has served in the Senate since 2018. She ran to represent the 1st Congressional District earlier this year before dropping out to endorse Ben McAdams, who went on to win the seat in last week’s election. Riebe’s current Utah Senate term runs through Jan. 1, 2029.
