Lobbyist accuses state Sen. Ivey-Soto of harassment, calls for his resignation

Feb. 23—A New Mexico lobbyist called for the resignation of state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto on Tuesday, alleging the Albuquerque Democrat groped her in 2015 and then, after she confronted him about it, stalled a high-profile voting rights bill she was advocating for during the 30-day legislative session that ended last week.

"Through this open letter, I am calling for your resignation from the Senate," Marianna Anaya wrote in a four-page letter distributed by her attorney, Levi Monagle.

"However, I do not believe you are self-reflective enough to take responsibility for your actions and step down. Therefore, I will also be filing a formal Anti-Harassment complaint and asking your colleagues to expel you," Anaya wrote.

Anaya alleges the incident occurred at a reception at the Drury Plaza Hotel when she was a young staffer for then-U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, now governor of New Mexico.

"You and I stood at a cocktail table next to each other and you slid your hand across my side and disgustingly groped and pinched my buttocks," she wrote.

In a telephone interview, Ivey-Soto expressed shock about the allegations in Anaya's letter.

"What? What?" he asked. "Oh my God."

Ivey-Soto later said he and Anaya had a wide-ranging conversation about a number of topics during this year's session, including her recollection of being at an event in

Santa Fe where he had reached over and grabbed her buttocks.

"I was in shock when she said that to me because that is not the kind of behavior that I would engage in ... certainly not with somebody that I don't know, not if it's unsolicited," he said.

Ivey-Soto said he apologized to Anaya "that she had that sense about" him. He said he wasn't angry but horrified and that what came to mind was an incident on the East Coast in which a white woman accused a Black youth of grabbing her buttocks and discovering later after watching a video of the incident that the boy's backpack had brushed up against the woman.

"I'm not discounting her memory of the situation," Ivey-Soto said, referring to Anaya. "I don't know what happened. I don't know what the movement was. But I did not reach down and grab her buttocks. I did not reach over and grab any part of her. But I'm not discounting that she has a recollection of that, and that's why I said I was horrified."

Ivey-Soto said he assured Anaya he would never behave that way.

"Her response was, 'Well, in other interactions that I've had with you, it doesn't seem like you,' " he said. "In fact, we both recalled that a year or two later, she and I were at an event and that after the event was over, I walked her back to her place and it was nighttime."

While he escorted her back to her place, the two had a "great conversation" that included Anaya telling Ivey-Soto he was a "perfect gentleman," he said.

Monagle, Anaya's attorney, said his client didn't come forward with the allegations right away because of the pressures women in similar situations face.

"There's a ton of pressure on women, in particular, to brush it off, to go with the flow, to play along and basically to stay quiet so that their careers don't suffer," said Monagle, who represented another lobbyist who accused former state Rep. Carl Trujillo of sexual harassment in 2018, about four years after the alleged incident.

Stained by the allegations amid the #MeToo movement, Trujillo was ousted from office in the June 2018 primary.

Monagle said Anaya "was just getting started in her profession" when the alleged incident took place.

"It takes a lot of courage, I think, for women to make such a public statement against such a powerful figure," he said. "But it got to the point, I believe, with Ms. Anaya that she just couldn't remain silent any longer, and here we are today."

Anaya accuses Ivey-Soto of perpetuating "sexual assaults and sexual harassment" against her and several other women, though no other women are named in the letter.

Anaya wrote she disclosed the alleged sexual harassment to a board she was serving on that called for Ivey-Soto's resignation last year after he was accused of misogyny following his tough line of questioning of Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, during the 60-day regular legislative session in 2021.

At the time, Anaya was serving as president of Emerge New Mexico, which works to increase the number of female Democrats in public office.

"When the members of the board meet to talk about calling for your resignation, I disclose to them that you sexually harassed me back in 2015. Another member of the organization discloses that you also groped her," Anaya wrote.

Anaya said she was "required to work" with Ivey-Soto during this year's 30-day session on the proposed New Mexico Voting Rights Act. She called his behavior "inexcusable" during their first meeting Jan. 18. Anaya accuses Ivey-Soto of skirting discussions about the bill to chastise her for her prior calls for him to resign.

"When I confronted you about groping me, you acknowledged the event happened yet avoided responsibility for the harm you caused by saying 'I'm sorry you experienced it that way,' " she wrote.

Anaya alleges Ivey-Soto drank alcohol throughout their conversation.

"When you emptied a bottle of wine into my glass and I said it was too much, you told me it was not too much, and then forcefully told me to drink it. When I left, you asked if you could give me a 'non-creepy hug.' I quickly left your office," she wrote.

Six days later, Anaya wrote she asked Ivey-Soto to meet in a public place for dinner because she still needed to talk to him about the voting rights bill. Anaya claims Ivey-Soto left her alone at the table for more than 20 minutes and asked her to sit close to him when he returned to their booth. She also claims Ivey-Soto's tone became aggressive, prompting her to switch subjects and tell him about a home renovation project she had completed.

Ivey-Soto "sexualized the situation," according to Anaya.

"Were you wearing a tool belt? What else were you wearing?" Ivey-Soto asked, according to Anaya, who wrote the dinner didn't last much longer and that she was relieved "the evening finally ended."

After denying his "advances," Anaya claims the voting rights bill started to suffer.

"You deliberately prevented the bill from receiving a timely hearing, knowing that such delays were an effective death sentence for any piece of important legislation during a short session," she wrote.

As chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Ivey-Soto "put the breaks" on the bill, Monagle said.

"The way that the bill was slow-pedaled by Sen. Ivey-Soto after this confrontation in his capacity as Rules chair had the indicia of retaliation," he said.

Ivey-Soto denied holding up the proposed bill in retaliation.

"To the extent there was a delay, it had nothing to do with her," he said.

Ivey-Soto initially delayed consideration of the bill to give the public a chance to review a substitute version.

The next day, he allowed unlimited public testimony during a hearing that stretched 7 1/2 hours. A "compilation problem" surfaced after public testimony, leading to another delay.

Ivey-Soto initially planned for the committee to reconvene the next day, on a Saturday, but the committee hearing didn't resume until the following Monday.

"Friday night is when I came down with diverticulitis," he said. "I ended up in the emergency room on Saturday. I'm told, 'You need to rest for a couple of days.' I actually showed up at the Capitol Monday morning so we could vote the bill out of committee. After we did that, I want back ... to my apartment in Santa Fe. That's how committed I was to getting the bill out."

Follow Daniel J. Chacón on Twitter

@danieljchacon.