California congresswoman accuses two sitting congressmen of sexually harassing staffers

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last updated 15 November 2017

During a House Administration Committee hearing Tuesday regarding congressional policies on sexual harassment, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said that two current congressmen — one Republican and one Democrat — had sexually harassed congressional staffers. Speier listed additional instances of alleged harassment by lawmakers that included groping, unwanted exposure, and in one case, a member asking a female staffer, "Are you going to be a good girl?"

In a follow-up interview with MSNBC, Speier explained the labyrinthine process victims of sexual harassment must undergo when reporting an incident related to Congress, which includes enduring one month of legal counseling, signing a nondisclosure agreement, going through another month of mediation, and then taking a month-long cooling off process before filing a formal sexual harassment complaint.

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On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) announced the House would introduce mandatory sexual harassment training, though he did not yet offer details about the new policy. Last week, Speier and two other representatives co-sponsored a bipartisan bill that would call for mandatory training; the California congresswoman also plans to introduce a bill to reform the congressional complaint process for sexual harassment.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.

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