Rose Pugliese, the top Republican in the Colorado House, resigned from the legislature Monday, three weeks after she publicly sparred with her Democratic counterpart over a photo taken of another lawmaker.
“This was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make,” Pugliese, of Colorado Springs, wrote in a Sunday letter addressed to friends and supporters. “When you are called to service, as I have been, it is difficult to walk away at a time when so many things need attention.”
The minority caucus leader was the second House Republican to resign in recent months. Rep. Ryan Armagost left in August, expediting a planned resignation after Democratic lawmakers announced their plans to censure him for surreptitiously taking and sharing a photo of a Democratic colleague, whose appearance was then ridiculed in a private Republican group chat.
Democrats also publicly accused Pugliese of concealing Armagost’s role in taking and sharing the picture until it was reported by Colorado Public Radio in July.
Pugliese vehemently denied that allegation in August, when lawmakers were back in the Capitol for a special session. During consideration of a resolution to condemn Armagost’s behavior, Pugliese said that she’d told House Majority Leader Monica Duran in April that Armagost had taken the photo.
Duran then took to the floor after Pugliese. She told the Republican that they could talk about “your character or lack of character or honesty” privately. She said the resolution was about Armagost’s conduct.
Pugliese then turned around and walked off the floor. She later returned to vote in favor of the resolution to reprimand Armagost.
In her resignation letter, Pugliese called the House “toxic” and said that the “lies and hypocrisies that (Democrats) spewed were beyond what I had ever expected.” She also said she’s recently reflected on her life choices, particularly in the wake of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week. As a single mother, she said she wanted to focus more on her children and keeping them safe.
Pugliese wrote that she intended to move back to Mesa County with her family. An attorney, she’d earlier served as a county commissioner there, and that elected position had served as her launch pad into politics. She moved to Colorado Springs ahead of the 2022 election.
A sophomore legislator, she was the third Republican minority leader in the House since 2022. Rep. Hugh McKean died suddenly of a heart attack that year, and his replacement, Rep. Mike Lynch, lasted little more 12 months before a previous drunk-driving arrest came to light and he stepped down from the role.
Pugliese — still a freshman at the time — was then elected leader.
She presided over an at-times fractious caucus that was a superminority in the House for the first year of her leadership. But Republicans then picked up three seats last November, breaking Democrats’ two-thirds supermajority.
The summer then brought the Armagost allegations to light, along with accusations — including from another Republican — that GOP Rep. Ron Weinberg had acted inappropriately.
House Republicans will now have to gather to elect Pugliese’s replacement. A vacancy committee will also be seated in the coming weeks to select a new lawmaker to represent House District 14 until the next general election in November 2026.
On Saturday, a separate vacancy committee selected Scott Slaugh to replace Armagost in representing House District 64.
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