The recent spate of bombshell allegations of sexual harassment perpetrated by powerful public figures, leading to terminations and forced resignations, almost seem to have become routine. The effect of the "Me Too" post-Weinstein movement is reverberating across the country. However, nowhere is the effect more prominent than at the highest levels of our government. While the resignations of Senators Al Franken (D-Min) and Trent Franks (R-Tex) and Representative John Conyers (D-Mich) are suggestive of public pressure applied by their congressional colleagues, it should not be surprising that all of them would have preferred to have their cases heard by their respective congressional ethics committees. Others, like Representatives Blake Farenthold (R-Tex) and Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev) seem to be holding out to do just that.
In the House and the Senate, ethics committees determine whether a member of Congress violated House or Senate ethics rules. In the Senate, the committee is made up of three Republicans and three Democrats, five men and one woman. These committees can't impose criminal sanctions, but in the most severe cases they can recommend that a member should be expelled. To activate such a recommendation the respective chamber must adopt it by a two thirds majority vote.
What makes this process attractive to accused members of Congress is that, for instance, the Senate Ethics Copmmittee has not issued a public punishment in a decade. The most recent expulsions occurred in 1861 and 1862 when 14 senators were expelled for disloyalty during the Civil War. More recently, in 1995, the committee voted unanimously to expel Senator Bob Packwood. He resigned before the matter was voted on by the full Senate.
It has been alleged that these committees are simply used as tools to bury cases until the public storm passes. They have developed a history of routinely disposing of submitted ethics complaints. In 2016 the Senate committee received 63 complaints of violations, 43 were dismissed out of hand for lack of "subject matter jurisdiction." Even when allegations were judged to have merit, the decision was made that no violation of Senate rules existed. The remaining 20 cases were dismissed for a variety of technical reasons. No case led to disciplinary action.
The closest thing to a Human Resources department for employees of the Legislative Branch of our government is the Office of Compliance, set up by the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995. The Act was initiated to protect more than 30,000 governmental employees. The O.O.C. Is its administrative arm charged with ensuring its integrity through programs of disputes resoliution, education and enforcement. In a typical case, staffers file complaints of sexual harassment with the O.O.C. The process used to resolve complaints is convoluted and time-consuming, and it is allegedly designed to protect the office of the accused member of Congress. Various sources details specifics.
To recap: After an incident, but before filing an official com plaint, victims are required to go through 30 days of "counseling" with an O.O.C. employee. Following that process, they have 15 days to decide whether they want to pursue the next step, which is 30 days of mandated "mediation." During mediation, a lawyer representing the congressional office gets involved. His or her job is to protect the office and the institution. This lawyer is funded with taxpayer money. If no settlement is reached, there is a 30-day cooling-off period, before a complaint can be filed. If a settlement is reached, it is usually accompanied by a non-disclosure agreement, and paid for with taxpayer money. (Emily Stewart, Vox, Nov. 20, 2017).
Representative Jackie Speier (D-Ca) and others are now pushing Congress to retool this process. According to Speier, the O.O.C. is "toothless" and "a joke." She recently told the House Administration Committee that "for some victims the complaint process is worse than the sexual harassment itself." During a Nov. 20 interview of MSNBC, she reiterated that "we have to make sure that a complaint is taken seriously, and the person who is the victim is not somehow tortured or intimidated into not filing a complaint. That's what it is right now in Congress."
It should not surprise anyone that sexual harassment appears to be prevalent in many state capitols. The ingredients are all there: power, ego, a disproportionate supply of testosterone and an abundance of ambitious young staffers who could worry that speaking up may be a career killer. We have a long way to go to eliminate inappropriate behavior by powerful people in prominent positions. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Mario Batali and others can be fired. But at the pinnacle of power in our government we are stuck with individuals with individuals who, for political reasons, won't be removed. We have a Supreme Court justice who was confirmed by the Senate in 1991, even though he was credibly accused of sexual harassment. And we elected a president, even though he bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault, and who just recently publicly supported an accused pedophile who ran for a Senate seat from Alabama.
Change can't come soon enough. More power to the bi-partisan group of, mostly female, legislators pushing for reform. However, given the intricacies of our congressional decision making process, and the players involved who need to take the lead to affect a satisfactory outcome, nobody should hold their breath.
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