Four women, including two sitting state legislators and a fellow city council member, have accused Salt Lake City Councilwoman Eva Lopez Chavez of making aggressive, unwanted sexual advances at social events between 2019 and 2022, the Daily Mail reported. The Democrat, who is also running for Congress, denied every allegation through her attorney.

The accusations describe a pattern of physical force, shoving, pinning, grabbing, climbing on top of, directed at women in settings ranging from wedding receptions to political fundraisers. None of the accusers filed police reports. But Council Chair Alejandro Puy, in an email obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune, said the accounts matched his own firsthand knowledge and could not be "dismissed or minimized."

Lopez Chavez's lawyer, Greg Skordas, called the allegations false and pointed to photographs, videos, and friendly text exchanges he said were "entirely inconsistent with these untrue allegations." The councilwoman has filed her own complaint against Puy and the city over what Skordas described as her treatment on the council, a complaint unrelated to the sexual-misconduct claims.

What the accusers say happened

The most detailed allegation comes from state Rep. Hoang Nguyen, who told the Salt Lake Tribune that Lopez Chavez climbed on top of her while Nguyen was giving her a ride back to her car after a campaign event for state Sen. Jen Plumb. Nguyen described the encounter bluntly:

"Next thing I know she has leaned over and she's on top of me, holding my shoulders down. I said, 'What are you doing?' And she said, 'Kiss me.' She said, 'I'm not going to get off you until you kiss me.' I gave her a peck and she got off."

Skordas responded that Lopez Chavez and Nguyen exchanged a series of friendly texts afterward that contain no mention of unwanted or inappropriate contact. He did not, however, directly address the substance of Nguyen's allegation, the Salt Lake Tribune noted.

Plumb, a state senator, alleged that at a friend's birthday party in November 2022, Lopez Chavez shoved her against a wall. Plumb told the Tribune:

"It absolutely was a sexual advance. She leaned into me, grabbed onto my a**, got up in my face and said in my ear, 'You're sure you're straight?'"

Skordas said Lopez Chavez "holds Plumb in the highest regard, considering her a good friend and colleague," and insisted that "nothing inappropriate happened and no one ever expressed any concern about Eva's conduct."

Councilwoman Victoria Petro described an encounter at the wedding reception of a former council member. The New York Post reported that Petro alleged Lopez Chavez grabbed her throat and pushed her against a pillar. In Petro's account to the Tribune, Lopez Chavez told her: "The only reason I still f*** men is because a woman hasn't shown me what I really want."

Petro said she later confided in several people, and Lopez Chavez confronted her about it. When Petro told Lopez Chavez she should not have given her a story to tell, Lopez Chavez allegedly replied: "It's my story." Petro framed the double standard plainly: "If a man had done that to me, would there be a question if it was assault or not?"

That question hangs over the entire affair. The same political culture that rightly demands accountability when men in power use physical force against unwilling women cannot simply look the other way because the accused is a woman, and a Democrat running for higher office. It is the same principle at stake in recent misconduct allegations against other Democratic officeholders, where the test is whether the party applies its own stated standards consistently.

A former aide's account

The fourth accuser, Maggie Regier, a former political aide who uses they/them pronouns, alleged that Lopez Chavez targeted them during a Human Rights Campaign fundraising event. Regier said Lopez Chavez was "flirty" throughout the evening, led them around the room by the wrist, and eventually dragged them into a hallway and pinned them against a wall until a friend physically intervened.

"Was kind of trying to grab on to me and another friend physically stepped between us and pushed her off of me and was like, 'Leave Maggie alone.'"

Regier said they reported the incident to a superior "in tears." Corey Cronin confirmed Regier's account, saying Regier told him about "being harassed by somebody [they] had a lot of respect for and [they] kept saying 'no.'"

Skordas countered that Regier "played and laughed" with Lopez Chavez at the fundraiser, "but no one was inappropriate in any way nor was there any unwanted contact." He said Lopez Chavez "never touched" Regier.

Regier offered a broader assessment: "Eva made unwanted sexual advances on multiple occurrences towards multiple women, and I hope she find the courage to take accountability for her actions."

Council leadership responds, and Lopez Chavez fights back

Council Chair Alejandro Puy ordered a review of council policies in February, before the allegations became public. That review remains ongoing. In an email obtained by the Salt Lake Tribune, Puy wrote that the reports and firsthand accounts of Lopez Chavez's past behavior "do not describe an isolated incident."

"They suggest a pattern of conduct that has affected colleagues in our own council, myself and many others in our community and has shaped our working environment."

A spokeswoman for the Salt Lake City council said the office had been unaware of any allegations before Lopez Chavez's appointment in 2023 and that "appropriate steps would have been taken immediately had the office been made aware of any such allegations." All four accusers said the alleged incidents occurred before Lopez Chavez joined the council.

When Democratic leaders have been confronted with misconduct allegations against their own, the pattern is often the same: expressions of concern followed by institutional inertia. We have seen senior Democrats distance themselves from accused colleagues only after the political cost became unavoidable. Whether Salt Lake City's Democratic establishment follows that same playbook remains to be seen.

Lopez Chavez, for her part, has gone on offense. Skordas said she filed a complaint against Puy and the city over her treatment on the council, a complaint he described as separate from the sexual-misconduct allegations. He said Lopez Chavez was "shocked" by the accusations.

The political fallout

The timing of the allegations is significant. The Washington Examiner reported that Lopez Chavez is running for Utah's 1st Congressional District but did not gather enough signatures to automatically qualify for the ballot. She needs sufficient delegate support at the state Democratic nominating convention to stay in the race. Skordas said "Eva intends to continue fighting for what's right."

The accusers said they decided to speak out after Lopez Chavez made recent public comments identifying herself as a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault. That framing, a candidate positioning herself as an advocate for survivors while four women allege she was the aggressor, is the kind of contradiction that demands scrutiny regardless of party affiliation.

Nguyen put the stakes in plain terms: "Our communities deserve leaders who take these issues seriously, not just in rhetoric but in conduct. We cannot excuse behavior, past or present, that trivializes or undermines the seriousness of sexual violence, assault and harassment."

The Utah Democratic Party and the Salt Lake City Council both said they take the claims "very seriously" and support investigations. But no formal investigation has been announced. No police reports were filed. And the council's internal policy review, launched in February, has yet to produce results.

The question of what consequences should follow when elected officials face credible misconduct allegations is not new. It is a question the left has insisted it takes more seriously than the right. Four women in Utah are now testing whether that claim holds up when the accused is one of their own.

Accountability is not a talking point. It is either a standard or it is not. The women who spoke up did so at personal and professional risk, inside their own political coalition. The least their party can do is treat those accounts with the same gravity it would demand if the accused had an R next to her name.

Standards that bend depending on who is accused are not standards at all. They are convenient shields for people who talk about justice but practice something else entirely.