– House Speaker Tim Jones said Monday the arrest of Democratic State Rep. Jeremy LaFaver for marijuana possession and failure to appear in court negatively reflects on the General Assembly as a whole, but stopped short of calling the lawmaker to resign from his seat.

In an email to PoliticMo, Jones said LaFaver should listen to advice from people in his district, Minority Leader Jacob Hummel, and Attorney General Chris Koster, the party’s likely gubernatorial candidate in 2016.

“Anytime an incident like this occurs, it generally elicits a negative reaction against elected public servants as a whole so Rep. LaFaver’s alleged actions are personally disappointing to me for that reason and for so many others,” Jones said. “His alleged conduct will potentially cause the public to not only lose their faith and trust in him, but will potentially cause them to lose their faith and trust in the institution of good government as a whole.”

LaFaver stepped down from his post as chairman of the House Democratic Victory Committee, the political arm of the House Democrats, but pledged to maintain his seat in the legislature. He was arrested on Sunday and released on bond. In a statement, he admitted to having a small amount of marijuana as well as a pipe with him when he was pulled over for expired tags – an offense for which he had failed to appear in court in Moniteau County, causing a warrant to be placed for his arrest.

Jones said if Koster and Hummel “wish to refer this matter to the House Committee on Ethics, I am confident that bipartisan committee will review the matter in a fair and impartial fashion.”

Koster’s campaign was unresponsive to a request for comment about the issue. In his own statement Monday morning announcing that he would step down from his role at the HDVC, LaFaver said:  “The goal of electing Democrats to the House is too important to the middle class men and women of Missouri for my personal embarrassment to become a distraction, and I have therefore asked the Minority Leader to let me step down from the chairmanship.”

Hummel will temporarily take over LaFaver’s role at the committee.