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Posted on 02/06/2018 2:09:10 PM PST by jazusamo
On Tuesday, the House passed a bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) that makes significant changes to the way that allegations of sexual harassment will be handled in Congress.
The most significant reform in Speier’s bill (officially known as the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Act ) appears to be a provision that forces lawmakers to pay back the U.S. Treasury when settling sexual harassment claims, a change that has drawn widespread support across ideological boundaries. Other popular provisions in the bill prohibit senators and representatives from dipping into their congressional office funds to pay off settlements and remove requirements for accusers to receive mediation and therapy for months in advance of filing formal charges.
The impetus for Speier’s legislation follows in the wake of increased national focus on complaints of sexual harassment against congressmen and potential problems with the way that the congressional Office of Compliance has handled these cases.
Last November, BuzzFeed News broke the story that longtime Democratic Rep. John Conyers (NY) used his congressional office’s funds to pay a $27,000 settlement to a former staffer who accused him of firing her for refusing his sexual advances. Although complete estimates of the amount of money spent on settling such claims of sexual impropriety are somewhat difficult to come by, past reports suggest that the Treasury alone (thus, not including settlements like Conyers’s) has shelled out hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last couple of decades:
The Treasury Department paid about $174,000 over five years to settle claims that included allegations of sexual harassment or sex discrimination in House member offices, including an $85,000 settlement in a claim against former congressman Eric Massa, The Washington Post confirmed Tuesday.
The payment was one of 15 settlements involving House offices between 2008 and 2012, according to data released Tuesday by a House committee. The data omitted details of the cases, but it was the latest attempt by the House to be transparent in reporting how frequently claims involve accusations of sexual harassment or sex discrimination.
The claims involved a total taxpayer cost of $342,225, with about $174,000 pinned to specific harassment or discrimination claims.
Although Speier’s bill has received near universal acclaim for its efforts to reform the sexual harassment claims process, some are pointing to potential problems with her legislation. According to The Hill :
[G]overnment transparency advocates have criticized a provision [in Speier’s bill] that sidelines the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), an independent watchdog, in reviewing workplace complaints filed through the Office of Compliance process.
Complaints would only be referred to the House Ethics Committee for review; the OCE would not be able to investigate on its own. A spokeswoman for the House Administration Committee said limiting investigations to the Ethics Committee would streamline the review process.
But critics warn that the provision takes away a layer of accountability, given that the OCE was created to ensure that members of the Ethics Committee would hold their colleagues to ethics standards.
"One can only hope that this is not a case of the camel’s nose slipping under the tent signaling further efforts to undermine OCE’s role, while limited, in upholding strong ethical standards in the House of Representatives," Issue One executive director Meredith McGehee said.
It's worth noting here that it was House Democrats, including current Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who originally pushed for the creation of the OCE during the Bush administration, ostensibly to prevent lawmakers from overlooking or ignoring serious ethical problems among their colleagues. Again, according to The Hill :
The OCE was created in 2008 as an independent, nonpartisan entity to add a layer of accountability to the House ethics process. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led the push to create the OCE as part of a congressional ethics reform package in response to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and violations by former Reps. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), Mark Foley (R-Fla.) and Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.).
Thus, if the Senate passes Speier’s bill without making any significant changes, it would undermine an institution that Democrats insisted was necessary to prevent ethical abuses by members of Congress.
This cries out for a political cartoon!
Leftist lawmakers sitting on street corners with a pencil cup or something and a sign like “Hard times-Need money for Sexual Harassment Settlements!”
RETROACTIVE!
Speier may not have harrassed anyone but she’s up to her eyeballs dirty in the Awan scandal.
Right on. LOL!
This should have been a NO BRAINER, why in the HELL should taxpayers pay for their misbehavior???? WHAT THE HELL TOOK THEM SO LONG??? This kind of CRAP really should piss ALL Americans off, DRAIN THE DAMNED SWAMP!!!! These BASTARDS are NOT held accountable for a damned thing what a job they have TERM LIMITS!!!!
Did anyone vote against it & if so, WHO?
“why in the HELL should taxpayers pay for their misbehavior???? “
So they don’t owe donors for paying, and keeping their secret.
But they probably did that on serious charges anyway.
Good
Why "pay back"? Why not just have them meet their responsibilities without jerking the taxpayers for their indiscretions? This leaves them an opening to use a plethora of excuses as they are known to do, thus the taxpayers are still going to be bitten in the keister as they are now. This is BALONEY! So typical of Democrats. Cover the issue with Democrat to make it unpleasant for anybody to go there, much less stick around to pursue the issue 'cause now it's old news.
There’s a line of women out the door and around the block waiting to accuse linda graham of sex... Oh, wait.
I wonder how Linda will vote in the senate, suer or suee?
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Pay back?
This implies that the Treasury will still pay the money but it must be paid back.
Wanna bet no-one ever pays it back?
IMO....Smoke & Mirrors.
Great...now let’s work on them for the TERM LIMITS thing!
FINALLY!
From another article it was a voice vote.
Excerpt from an article at the Hill, it covers more than this one:
“Under the current system created by a 1995 law, staffers must go through months of mediation and counseling before they can formally file a complaint. The bill passed on Tuesday would ensure the mediation and counseling are no longer mandatory, as well as provide staffers with access to an advocate providing legal advice and representation.
Members of Congress accused of sexual harassment would be personally on the hook for any settlement payments. Any lawmaker who agrees to a settlement would have to reimburse taxpayers within 90 days and would be barred from using any office funds to pay the costs.
The Office of Compliance, which handles the workplace dispute reporting process, would be required to publish reports online every six months detailing the settlement amounts and the employing offices involved.
“Taxpayers should not bail members of Congress out for misconduct,” said Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who had introduced a bill last year that would ban taxpayer-funded settlements for harassment cases against lawmakers.
According to statistics released by the House Administration Committee, close to $200,000 has been provided by a special fund operated by the Treasury Department in the last two decades to cover settlements related to sexual harassment.
Yet those funds do not count settlements paid out by lawmakers’ personal offices, which would no longer be allowed under the legislation. Reports by BuzzFeed and The New York Times found that at least two members of Congress agreed to settle complaints of sexual harassment from former aides that were paid from their taxpayer-funded office budgets.
Former Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) resigned last year after BuzzFeed reported that a female former aide who accused him of sexual harassment received about $27,000 in installments from his office budget.”
Thanks for that response. Appreciate it.
How about a bill where they have to f-ing resign too?
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