Madison, Wisconsin.. Prosecutors charged a wisconsin lawmaker with disorderly conduct on wednesday in connection with Disagreement over who participates in drafting decisions honoring Hispanics last year.
Rep. Sylvia Ortiz Velez, a Democrat from Milwaukee, faces up to 90 days in jail if convicted in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. Online court records did not list an attorney for her and she did not immediately respond to a voicemail message from The Associated Press seeking comment.
According to a criminal complaint, the dispute began in August when Democrats were planning resolutions honoring Hispanic heritage and Hispanic veterans in observance of Hispanic Heritage Month in September.
Ortiz-Velez was angry because she believed the legislator who drafted the heritage resolution had deliberately excluded her from working on it. The legislator’s name was not mentioned in the complaint.
Ortiz-Velez was invited to work on the resolution in June and chose not to participate, but still wanted to help draft the text, according to the complaint.
Ortiz Velez contacted the media saying that she had been intentionally excluded from the decision. She also told the resolution’s author that she felt excluded from working on another resolution the same legislator was drafting to honor Hispanic veterans, saying her late husband was a Hispanic veteran.
Two other lawmakers — both unnamed in the complaint — told investigators that Ortiz Velez told them in separate phone conversations that she would release “negative personal information” about the decision maker to the media and that “they will do what I want them to do, or I will do it.”
When a lawmaker asked her what that meant, she made comments about the personal lives of the decision maker and other lawmakers. The complaint described those statements as “inappropriate and tending to disturb good public order.”
The complaint did not detail Ortiz Velez’s comments or provide any other details about the situation.
Democratic leaders issued a statement in September saying Ortiz Velez made a comment about the shooting of three caucus members. This statement came one day after another statement announcing that Ortiz Velez would leave the Democratic Caucus. In interviews with the news site Wisconsin Right Now and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Ortiz-Velez denied that she threatened her colleagues.
Ortiz-Velez won a third term representing central Milwaukee in November 2024. She told Wisconsin Right Now that she endured years of “unacceptable, absolutely vile, despicable and cruel” treatment from members of her caucus and that party leadership allowed it.
The Legislature’s website still listed Ortiz Velez’s party affiliation as Democrat on Wednesday. Messages left with aides to Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer and Republican House Speaker Robin Vos were not returned.