Negotiators briefed colleagues on the deal Tuesday.
Bipartisan Senate negotiators on Tuesday briefed colleagues on an emerging deal to overhaul Capitol Hill workplace harassment rules, a long-awaited step that comes more than three months after the House approved its own bill.
Senate Rules Chairman Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), told their respective party caucuses about the agreement during lunch on Tuesday, senators said. A vote on the deal to remodel the Hill’s workplace misconduct system — which had been lambasted by both parties as inadequate amid a wave of sexual harassment scandals last year — is expected to come within weeks or even days.
The Senate is “getting very close to an agreement that everybody ought to be able to sign off on,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters Tuesday.
The House-passed harassment bill would eliminate mandatory counseling and mediation for victims alleging workplace harassment on the Hill, while beefing up the role of the Office of Compliance, the misconduct adjudicator for lawmakers and aides, among other reforms.
But it’s unclear how bipartisan House negotiators will view the Senate agreement’s handling of lawmakers’ financial liability for harassment and discrimination claims for which they are found personally responsible.
Talks earlier this year on adding a harassment overhaul to a must-pass spending bill stalled amid resistance in the Senate to the House-passed language, which holds lawmakers personally liable for harassment and discrimination claims that are paid with taxpayer money under current law.
Blunt told reporters that he and Klobuchar “need to compare notes a little bit” but that he expects personal liability for lawmakers to be a part of the deal once it becomes public.
