The American people have gotten used to complete inaction and incompetence by Congress. And though it’s not surprising, it is maddening and downright frightening that they can’t seem to agree on and do basic things—such as come up with a way to stop their colleagues from sexually harassing their employees. Though they are about to move into their August recess, Congress still doesn’t have meaningful legislation which addresses sexual harassment claims among lawmakers and holds them accountable.
This has been publicly going on since the fall of 2017, though this problem started way before last year. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, current and former staffers started speaking up about the culture of abuse they’ve experienced on Capitol Hill. As a result, both the Senate and House came up with two different bills to reform how sexual harassment claims are handled and settled. As NBC News reports, both bills require that lawmakers who enter into financial settlements with victims must be financially responsible for payments. But the Senate bill “includes less oversight and accountability for members.”
The Senate has decided to limit the definition of harassment. And, in their bill, lawmakers are only required to pay when they sexually harass someone but not for engaging in other kinds of discrimination. This was passed unanimously by the Senate. Which means only one thing: the Senate does not care about protecting women and thinks dealing with groping, sleazy sexual abusers and harassers is just part of the day-to-day duties when you work on Capitol Hill. Not only do they believe this is okay and are doing the bare minimum to hold harassers accountable, they want the House to sign off on their disgusting sham of a bill.
But, thankfully, the House said no. As per NBC News, House members know the Senate proposal won’t actually do anything to change the current culture of abuse among lawmakers. In fact, in protesting the Senate bill, House members said the bill “creates too many loopholes to be considered a strong deterrent of harassment on the Hill.” While both bills do try to make the process for reporting harassment easier and less burdensome, the Senate bill requires that victims and accusers go through mediation and places responsibility on the victim to opt out within ten days of a complaint being filed.
Lastly, the Senate bill allows the Ethics Committee to review cases where members are expected to pay settlements to victims. House members also take issue with this, saying that the “process creates an opportunity for lawmakers to be excused from personal accountability of payment.” Lawmakers being excused from personal accountability when it comes to harassment. Gee, imagine that. As if the entire Senate bill and the fact that they can’t seem to come to agreement with the House to make this law aren’t evidence of how far Congress is willing to go to protect its own—even especially when they are breaking the law and abusing women.
Who knows if they will ever come to agreement on this issue. They most certainly will not before their August recess. But we should expect nothing less from these feckless lawmakers who relish having their old boys club in Washington. And why should they do anything different anyway? Republicans have a majority in the Senate and the head of their party is a serial sexual abuser and harasser. They are simply following his lead.