Congressional Leaders Face Internal Pressure To Act On Harassment

WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders are under mounting pressure to respond swiftly to sexual misconduct allegations involving prominent members, following an outcry from women lawmakers who believe their male colleagues are being treated more gently than offenders in the private sector.

"If you look, the media and corporate America has been firing people," Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week," noting the swift dismissal by CBS and PBS of Charlie Rose after The Washington Post's report of harassment allegations. "We have to have the same kind of standards."

In recent days, both parties have faced allegations against prominent male members, with ethics inquiries into harassment opened against Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich, and Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, D. The political future of Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, was thrown into question when nude photos of the congressman surfaced on social media, and a former girlfriend said he had threatened to report her to the Capitol Police if she exposed his behavior.

The first sign of intensifying pressure on leadership came Sunday, when Conyers, the longest-serving member of Congress, stepped aside as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

Behind the scenes, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, DCalif., had tried to guide Conyers to give up the leadership post, according to a senior Democratic aide familiar with the process. Conyers' resistance to the effort was backed by some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which Conyers co-founded more than 45 years ago.

On Sunday, Pelosi appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and struggled to handle questions about Conyers, 88, a onetime civil rights leader.

At first, Pelosi, the first female House speaker, stressed that he needed to have "due process" and called Conyers "an icon of history." Then she hinted that eventually Conyers would "do the right thing."

By lunchtime, Conyers announced he would step down from the committee post. "I very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family before the House Committee on Ethics," he wrote in a statement that Pelosi's advisers circulated to the media.

Some women members had demanded that Conyers resign from his job. Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., who last week called for him to step down, told CNN Friday that voters are "sick and tired of the rules in Washington" being different than for the rest of America.

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who is leading a fight for tougher sanctions against law-makers, stopped short of demanding that Conyers resign in her Sunday appearance on "This Week." But she joined her colleagues in criticizing the ethics committee process as too slow in handling most investigations.

She advocated that the panel receive more funding so it could "move very swiftly, not wait years," to investigate the Conyers allegations.

Speier said there needed to be an entire shift in culture, from the bottom up, which would make it easier for victims to come forward and would end the process of allowing lawmakers to use taxpayer funds to secretly settle these cases.

"We say zero tolerance, but I don't believe that we put our money where our mouths are," she said.

Later this week the House is slated to vote on a measure sponsored by Speier and Com-stock that would require mandatory training on harassment and discrimination for all lawmakers, staff and interns who work in Congress.

Many staff have said they have no idea how to file complaints, and those that have gone through that process have described it as cumbersome. Com-stock said she and Speier were just beginning their work on the issue, promising further action after this first bill passes.

In particular, she singled out how Conyers settled a sexual harassment complaint brought by a former staffer in 2015, leaving the woman on the payroll as a temporary employee and paying out just under $30,000. That payout came from the lawmaker's regular allowance for staff salaries and other administrative costs, different from a separate account overseen by the Office of Compliance, which has paid out more than $15 million in settlements of sexual harassment and other cases of discrimination.

"No more secret payments," Comstock said.

After more than a week in seclusion, Franken gave his first interviews to his home-state media, defending himself against allegations that he inappropriately groped or forcibly kissed four women. The Senate's ethics panel is investigating.

Franken pledged to return to the Capitol Monday in a bid to win over his state's voters, declining to resign after allegations that he groped several women.