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Capitol Hill consumed by sexual harassment issue

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On a day when the House passed the biggest tax bill in decades, everyone was talking about Al Franken.
The national conversation about sexual harassment has hit the clubby halls of the Capitol with a vengeance.
Democrats faced their own internal reckoning on Thursday when Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) apologized to a radio anchor who said he forcibly kissed and groped her in 2006. Once a potential presidential hopeful, Franken quickly submitted to a Senate Ethics Committee investigation.
The Franken bombshell came amid a deluge of news coverage in recent days of Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, who is accused of harassing or sexually assaulting multiple teenage girls and young women. Earlier Thursday, the chief of staff to a House lawmaker leading the charge against sexual harassment in Congress resigned in the face of sexual misconduct allegations by former aides.
And earlier this week, a pair of female lawmakers said that several current members of Congress have sexually harassed women.
On a day when the House passed the most far-reaching tax bill in decades, and when jurors in New Jersey deadlocked in a corruption trial involving a sitting senator, Robert Menendez, Capitol Hill was consumed instead by the issue of sexual harassment.
And it prompted a rare bout of soul-searching in an institution not exactly known for that.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a leading advocate for Congress’ recent shift from voluntary to mandatory sexual harassment training, said it was depressing that such a move was even necessary.
“That’s a sad commentary, you know, that you have to do it,” Grassley told reporters.
More than 1,500 former congressional aides have signed an open letter to leaders in both parties declaring that Congress’ policies for deterring and acting on harassment cases are “inadequate and need reform.” Yet, despite the Republican condemnation of Moore and Democratic dismay at Franken, legislation that would impose that reform has yet to reach a critical mass of bipartisan support.
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) has two GOP backers for a proposal to overhaul the congressional workplace misconduct system. But Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) remains in search of a Republican partner for the same bill in the upper chamber.
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) on Thursday decried Franken’s “inexcusable conduct” and said he hopes Capitol Hill’s culture is on the verge of changing as more stories surface.
“I think it’s important every office have a policy in place like I’ve had for years now on this issue,” Casey told reporters.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) was one of the few Democrats who responded to the sexual misconduct allegations against Franken, which he criticized as “deeply troubling and disappointing,” by recalling Donald Trump’s many accusers. It was a rare instance of partisan finger-pointing on the matter, which both parties acknowledge has no party affiliation.
“Assertions of deplorable behavior by President Trump have been made by many women over many years, and I deeply regret those allegations will never be scrutinized the way they should be,” Carper said in a statement.
The Senate Ethics Committee had not formally announced an investigation into Franken’s behavior toward radio anchor Leeann Tweeden as of Thursday afternoon. But a probe is all but inevitable after both Senate leaders called for one and the Minnesota senator said he would cooperate.
The Senate Ethics Committee’s work could spread even further. If Alabama Senate GOP candidate Roy Moore is elected Dec. 12 and sworn in, an ethics investigation would commence immediately, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week.
McConnell oversaw the effort to expel former Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) nearly two decades ago over sexual harassment allegations. Packwood resigned before he could be formally ejected from the chamber, however.
The most recent Senate Ethics probe involving sexual allegations was into ex-Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who had an extramarital affair with the wife of a former top aide, for whom Ensign arranged lobbying work. Ensign resigned before the committee could finish its investigation, at which point Ethics no longer had jurisdiction.
“It could lead to any number of things,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of an Ethics probe into Franken, which the Illinois Democrat said he supports. “It’s not fair to prejudge it, or to judge what the committee will do.”
Franken, with his dash of celebrity and reputation for humor, had become a sought-after Democratic fundraiser in recent years. Earlier this month, he traveled to St. Louis for the Missouri Democratic Party’s annual Truman Dinner. Introducing him, Sen. Claire McCaskill praised Franken as her friend, and said he was in town to “to motivate us, to make us understand that we’re not done in Missouri as Democrats.”
On Thursday, McCaskill, who has spoken openly of her own experiences with sexual harassment, was the first senator to announce she would donate campaign cash she received from Franken to charity, just hours after the accusation hit the internet.
Other senators, facing reelection in 2018, quickly followed. Ohio’s Sherrod Brown donated $28,100 to charities across his state. Montana Sen. Jon Tester gave $25,000 to the Montana Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly and Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey each pledged $10,000 in donations. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson canceled a fundraiser with Franken scheduled for Saturday.
In the past, campaigns often waited until days after a scandal broke to donate tainted campaign funds to charity. On Thursday, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee pressuring them and few Democrats stepping forward to defend the Minnesotan, there was no delay.
By the end of day, essentially every vulnerable Democrat facing reelection in 2018 had said they were donating money from Franken to charity.
Back on Capitol Hill, Grassley — a lead architect of the 1995 law that created the Hill’s office in charge of workplace misconduct complaints — was optimistic that required training could create significant change.

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