Public records around sexual harassment won’t be affected.
A Louisiana Senate committee agreed to combine three different bills aimed at combatting sexual harassment in state government and removed from the remaining proposal provisions that would have kept government reports about sexual harassment secret. The committee moved the compromise legislation Wednesday (April 18) to the full Senate for consideration.
House Bill 524 sponsored by Rep. Barbara Carpenter, D-Baton Rouge, would require state agencies to have a policy on how to handle sexual harassment and to mandate sexual harassment training for all state government employees. The sexual harassment policy would have to include specific examples of what is prohibited.
More amendments are expected to the Carpenter bill to make it reflect more of what Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, had initially proposed in a separate piece of legislation. Hewitt’s legislation gave more detailed directions regarding how sexual harassment complaints should be investigated and also required that people applying for state jobs are screened for past sexual harassment misconduct.
Proposals from both Carpenter and Hewitt previously included language that could have shielded from the public some documents about sexual harassment allegations in state government. But Carpenter’s bill no longer contains language regarding public records laws.
Government transparency experts opposed the language, saying it would protect people who committing sexual harassment and managers who were trying to cover it up in state government.
Carpenter had been in favor of the public records confidentiality amendment, saying the language was necessary to protect victims of sexual harassment and people who are accused of sexual harassment, but innocent. Carpenter said the details of what happens with sexual harassment allegations «usually come out» whether documents are released or not.
Nevertheless, concerns over public access to those records almost derailed three sexual harassment prevention bills when they were on the Senate floor last week, and led to their return to a Senate committee for refining.
Currently, many records related to sexual harassment complaints and allegations are public record. The names of the victims, the person being accused of the sexual harassment and witnesses to the event are sometimes disclosed.
Carpenter’s bill wasn’t the first piece of legislation this year that had tried to make public records about sexual harassment in state government confidential. Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, also filed similar legislation, though she hasn’t presented the bill for discussion yet.
The Barrow bill was part of Gov. John Bel Edwards’ legislative package. The governor’s office said they wanted to make more documents about sexual harassment investigations confidential in order to protect the identities of alleged victims.
The governor’s general counsel, Matthew Block, said he is still talking to government transparency advocates about language that might conceal the identity of victims, but not close off the public’s access to sexual harassment records.
There’s not been an agreement on what changes to public records laws would be acceptable to both the governor’s office and transparency advocates, so it’s unlikely another piece of legislation will be moved to address that issue.
«I don’t imagine that we will be moving anything,» Block said in an interview.
Louisiana spent $5.2 million to resolve lawsuits involving sexual harassment in state government from mid-2009 until February of 2018, according to an audit released Tuesday. In addition to these lawsuits, state agencies in the executive branch also reported 311 internal complaints about sexual harassment in state government from 2013 through 2017.
There have been a few high-profile cases of alleged sexual harassment in state government over the past few months. The state paid $96,000 to deal with sexual harassment allegations made against Edwards’ former deputy chief of staff Johnny Anderson.
Secretary of State Tom Schedler and the state also are being sued by one of Schedler’s employees who said she was sexual harassed by Schedler. That case hasn’t been resolved yet.
