In 1995 the Congressional Office of Compliance required Congress to make a list of the number of complaints against members of Congress and their employees for sexual harassment and other violations of employment. Congress was ordered to compile statistics, but not reveal the names of Congressmen. The bureaucratic mandate:
[C]ompile and publish statistics on the use of the Office by covered employees, including the number and type of contacts made with the Office, on the reason for such contacts, on the number of covered employees who initiated proceedings with the Office under this chapter and the result of such proceedings, and on the number of covered employees who filed a complaint, the basis for the complaint, and the action taken on the complaint..
Taxpayers pay for this ‘shush fund’, we have a right to know who was charged and what those charges were. If the acts were not committed by Congressmen, were their Congressional employees fired for committing these acts? If they were Congressmen, who were they?
12 comments
Afraid you won’t like the answer to “who were they” because they are Republicans as well and the reason the GOP can “tackle” this issue right now and claim impartiality is because of the secret nature of this slush fund.
You seem to think republicans are like democrats. To me, let the chips fall where the may. Get rid of them all regardless of party. There are plenty of good people waiting in the wing to take the place of the scum.
I’m not willing to give much credit to Ms. Comstock. After all she’s been on the Hill for many years and now she’s outrage over sexual misconduct..Oh, and there’s gambling at Rick’s….
Are there any settlement data from before 1997?
Not that I know of. The law wasn’t passed until 1995.
Collecting the data may be another reform the Republicans instituted when they took over Congress in 1995.
I bet there’s plenty of GOP names in that secret settlement file. Your unwillingness to look at them does not bode well for your party.
Imagine the real scandal if they names were made available. Somebody knows who and every sneeze is almost certainly sweating the possible leak.
Interestingly, Barbara Comstock seems to be pursuing this. Go Comstock! This is a great issue for her. People on all sides of the aisle should applaud it.
I doubt applause, more likely fear. Even if you didn’t actually do anything, you may have known someone who did and will be criticized for not doing something.
I am really concerned about this witch hunt as a lot of people are being hurt by unproven allegations. To me, there has to be proof such as the Clinton stain on the blue dress, an actual picture like Franken or an open admission such as Rose. The Moore situation is the opposite of proof. He has claimed that he never did a thing. Some of the allegations and the accusations are now being repudiated by others – with the latest being the Nelson woman never worked at the restaurant claimed in the yearbook.
If a woman or, for that matter a man, has been damaged by sexual (and for that matter other types) of harassment, then they need to be compensated in someway – at the very least correction the mistakes made by those who damaged their reputation. Obviously, if rape occurred, then criminal prosecution is appropriate.
One final point, we can’t have men or women looking over their shoulders for decades wondering if something will be sprung on them by a jilted lover or a political/business enemy just looking to gain advantage.
You and I are both old enough to know that both men and women lie for advantage. I have seen it a number of times within my business environment and those lies not only damage individuals but entire business operations. I don’t think there are any perfect solutions as there are not perfect people so I don’t have a real answer other than proof must be presented and adjudicated. Anything else means guilty until proven innocent and that standard, used in the Salem witch trials, sent innocent people to their deaths.
Liberal (not neoliberal) here and I completely agree with you. No trial, no hearing. Just allegations. And Moore has a whole handful of accusers as well. If Al Franken were just now running for office, with allegations surfacing like this, you’d probably ask him to step down from running. Show the same consistent logic when it comes to Moore. Thanks.
In the Franken case there is that troubling thing called evidence. In the Moore case there is no evidence – unless you consider forgeries in a 40 year old high school yearbook as evidence of Moore’s guilt.
By the way, since you are a liberal, you must be a sexual predator. See how easy it is to accuse? When an accusation is an acceptable substitute for proof, then there is no innocent until proven guilty. Quite the opposite – and if you lived in North Korea said accusation would amount to a death sentence.