Ruben Kihuen

In November 2018, the House Ethics Committee formally sanctioned Kihuen, determining he "made persistent and unwanted advances towards women". The report noted that "each of the complainant’s allegations were supported by documentary evidence and some of the alleged incidents were corroborated by third-party witnesses."

In December 2017, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called on Kihuen to resign in response to sexual misconduct allegations against him by a female campaign staff member, as reported by BuzzFeed. He refused to resign but did not run for reelection in 2018.

On December 1, 2017, a 25-year-old woman who served as finance director of Kihuen's 2016 congressional campaign accused him of sexual harassment and unwanted touching. The woman, who joined Kihuen's campaign in June 2015 and left in April 2016, alleges that Kihuen's behavior began in February, that he repeatedly requested that she go on dates or have sexual intercourse with him, and on two occasions forcibly touched her thighs without consent.

On December 13, 2017, a second woman accused Kihuen of sexual misconduct. The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Nevada Independent that he touched her thighs or butt in three separate incidents, and has sent her hundreds of sexually suggestive text messages. As of December 13, Kihuen has yet to deny or confirm the allegation to the Independent. A third woman accused Kihuen of improper touching.

On December 16, 2017, Kihuen announced that he would not seek re-election in 2018 but later claimed he was reconsidering this decision. In January 2019, he announced he would seek a Las Vegas City Council seat.

In addition to the finance director's conversation with the DCCC operative, she also documented Kihuen's behavior in a series of March 10, 2016 text messages to a friend, and shared contemporaneous details of her departure with four other individuals at the time. When asked about the accusations, Kihuen said, "I sincerely apologize for anything that I may have said or done that made her feel uncomfortable".

Lucy Flores, who served alongside Kihuen in the Nevada Legislature and had been his Democratic primary opponent in 2016, said that she found the allegations unsurprising given his reputation in the legislature, where "even though he maintained a girlfriend, he was known to be very flirtatious and hands on" and that she had "personally witnessed him being grabby with young, attractive women".

On March 28, 2015, Kihuen announced he was running for Congress in Nevada's 4th congressional district , seeking to defeat first-term incumbent Republican Cresent Hardy. He defeated seven other candidates in the Democratic primary on June 14, 2016. Kihuen spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the only 2016 House recruit to do so. During the campaign, Kihuen was on leave from his job at the Las Vegas-based public relations firm the Ramirez Group.

Ruben graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with a Bachelor of Science degree in education. While in high school and college, Kihuen volunteered for the campaigns of Senator Harry Reid, Virginia Governor Mark Warner, and Houston Mayor Lee Brown. As of 2011, Kihuen was enrolled in the Master of Public Administration degree program at the University of Oklahoma.

In September 2011, Kihuen announced his intention to run to represent Nevada's 1st congressional district but withdrew a month before filing opened in February 2012, allowing former Representative Dina Titus to run without a contested primary.

Kihuen served two terms before successfully running in 2010 to the Nevada State Senate after the incumbent was term-limited. During the 76th legislative session in 2011 he was the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Economic Growth and Employment. In the 77th legislative session in 2013, he chaired the Senate Standing Committee on Revenue and Economic Development and served as Majority Whip for the Democrats in the Senate.

Kihuen was first elected to the State Assembly in 2006, defeating incumbent Bob McCleary by a large margin (and with the support of the AFL-CIO) in a 3-way primary. The primary was shrouded by a scandal surrounding McCleary's payment of $500 to David Adams, the third candidate in the race, who had briefly dropped out after the payment; Adams described the payment as a bribe while McCleary insisted that the payment had been compensation to work on his campaign. Kihuen was unopposed in the general election.

In 2002, Kihuen became a deputy field director for the Nevada Democratic Party. He then served as regional representative to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He then worked as student recruiter and academic advisor for the College of Southern Nevada (CSN). He is a past member of the Clark County Community Development Advisory Committee and the North Las Vegas Citizen's Advisory Committee.

Rubén Jesús Kihuen Bernal was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. His family moved to the United States in 1988. His father was a laborer in Orange County, California, before moving to Las Vegas in the 1990s and becoming a middle school science teacher. Kihuen attended Rancho High School and was named the 1997–1998 Nevada "soccer player of the year."

Rubén Jesús Kihuen Bernal (/ˈ r uː b ə n ˈ k iː w ɪ n / ; born April 25, 1980) is an American politician and former member of the United States House of Representatives for Nevada's 4th congressional district , serving from 2017 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously was a member of the Nevada Senate from 2006 to 2016. He was Nevada's first Latino member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Kihuen described himself as the first "Dreamer" elected to Congress.