A Republican Colorado lawmaker added hours to debate in the state House of Representatives over the state budget bill this week after she asked for the bill to be read out loud in its entirety.

Representative Brandi Bradley of Littleton asked for the bill to be read at length — a request any member can make during floor debate on a bill — Wednesday night after a full day of discussion on the budget. She said the request was prompted by her objections to how the chamber handled an ethics complaint she made against a fellow Republican earlier this year.

“Our own ethical complaint process is broken. It is ripe with abuse, and it must be fixed. I have been personally victimized both by a member here and by our so-called ethical process,” she said. “For this reason, I move that the bill be read at length until such time that we commit to address our own shortcomings, the unjustness of our own rules and bring both light and justice to victims in this House, including myself and others.”

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House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat, moved on Wednesday night to delay the bill’s reading, and the chamber reconvened Thursday morning. After about 10 hours of debate over the other budget-related bills on Thursday, a computerized system began reading each line of the 600-page main budget bill. It was expected to take the system about 15 hours to read the entire bill, putting an end time around 9:30 a.m. Friday.

When a member requests a bill be read at length, they have to stay in the chamber for the entire duration except for short bathroom breaks. The delay tactic, which is rarely used for other bills and especially not for the budget, means the earliest the chamber can formally pass the budget bill package is Saturday.

Bradley filed an ethics complaint against Republican state Representative Ron Weinberg last summer, and a bipartisan House Ethics Committee made up of five members considered the complaint earlier this year. She alleged Weinberg committed campaign finance violations, carried a gun while drunk, used a Capitol master key without permission and made sexually inappropriate comments to her and other Republican women.

The committee met eight times and ultimately decided to find probable cause for two of the six claims in the complaint, including one regarding a pattern of alleged inappropriate sexual comments and behavior. Weinberg initially requested an evidentiary hearing but then decided against it. The committee recommendedthat House leadership send Weinberg a letter of admonishment over his behavior that directs him to undergo sexual harassment training through the Legislative Human Resources Division.

In a text message to Colorado Newsline on Thursday night, Bradley said that if House leadership “would like to follow the rule as to read the ethics recommendation regarding Ron Weinberg to the House body … I would withdraw my request.”

“There has to be a change in culture that is in the state building,” she wrote.

She pointed to the House rule governing the ethics committee, which states that following an evidentiary hearing, “the committee may dismiss the complaint, or, if it finds that action should be taken against the member complained against, it shall make appropriate recommendations to the House of Representatives, including reprimand, censure, or expulsion.”