Virginia lawmaker Jackie Glass mentioned she received a “safety brief” when she joined the Legislature.
“I was told who not to go drink with, who not to be alone with and who to just watch out for,” she mentioned on the Statehouse ground in 2024. Addressing the male Home speaker, she mentioned, “I don’t think you got that brief.”
The Democrat was discussing a pervasive tradition of sexual misconduct within the Statehouse, one thing that is still regardless of the #MeToo motion hitting vital mass in 2017.
The motion toppled politicians, celebrities and others throughout the nation. Allegations of harassment and misconduct, some from a few years prior, got here to gentle — highlighting a poisonous tradition the place such habits was maybe as rampant and accepted because the silence that buried it.
Many state legislatures responded by adopting or enhancing insurance policies in opposition to sexual misconduct. Because the variety of feminine state lawmakers reaches new heights, some say statehouses are much less of a “boys’ club.”
However allegations proceed to floor — on the state stage and past.
In an interview with The Related Press, Glass questioned why she would encourage ladies to hitch the legislative ranks when it feels little has modified.
“I just don’t know how we keep women — and well, quite frankly, people — safe when it feels like it goes hand in hand with the work,” she mentioned.
12 dozen lawmakers accused in 8 years
Since 2017, The Related Press has cataloged a minimum of 147 state lawmakers throughout 44 states who’ve been accused of sexual harassment or sexual misconduct.
Over a 3rd resigned or have been expelled from workplace and roughly one other third confronted repercussions, equivalent to dropping celebration or committee management positions. A dozen high state govt officers, together with governors and attorneys common, additionally confronted sexual misconduct allegations throughout that point, and most resigned.
The whole contains allegations of incidents in state authorities and outdoors of it. That features Minnesota Republican state Sen. Justin Eichorn, who resigned on Thursday after being charged with soliciting a minor for prostitution. A federal defender mentioned Thursday that Eichorn was nonetheless within the means of hiring a personal lawyer.
Most allegations have been reported within the first two years of #MeToo, however extra have emerged yearly since.
In 2024 alone, the AP tallied a minimum of 14 state lawmakers from a dozen states who have been accused — about twice as many because the earlier 12 months.
In accordance with the Nationwide Girls’s Protection League, which advocates for sexual harassment insurance policies in statehouses and retains its personal rely, Republicans and Democrats are almost equally accused and 94% of these total are males.
New insurance policies and coaching, however not at all times transparency
An AP survey of the legislative chambers in every state, carried out from final November by means of January, discovered about half had up to date their sexual harassment insurance policies over the previous 5 years.
The Nevada Legislature, for instance, expanded its definition of sexual harassment to incorporate “visual” conduct — equivalent to derogatory photographs or gestures.
And the Kentucky Normal Meeting added sexual harassment to its checklist of “ ethical misconduct,” taking motion a number of years after revelations that 4 lawmakers had signed a secret sexual harassment settlement with a feminine worker.
Close to the start of #MeToo, an AP survey discovered a couple of third of legislative chambers didn’t require lawmakers to take sexual harassment coaching.
Virtually all state legislatures now supply it, although it’s not at all times necessary and content material, format and frequency differ.
Tutorial specialists and girls’s advocacy teams say frequent coaching is finest — carried out in particular person and with real-life situations. Whereas most chambers supply in-person coaching, solely about one-third nationwide conduct coaching yearly, in keeping with AP’s survey.
Not each legislative chamber is clear about its insurance policies or efforts to mitigate sexual harassment and misconduct, although.
The Oklahoma Senate and each chambers of the West Virginia Legislature declined to supply their sexual harassment insurance policies to the AP, asserting they’re inner paperwork exempt from disclosure. The Mississippi Senate didn’t reply to requests for its written coverage.
The Arkansas Senate is the one legislative chamber with out a particular sexual harassment coverage, however Senate authorized counsel mentioned it has an ethics code and the authority to self-discipline members.
Lawmakers in California created a physique unbiased of the Legislature to analyze reviews of sexual harassment with a name line. Nevertheless, investigation findings are solely launched publicly if the criticism is discovered to be substantiated in opposition to a lawmaker or high-level staffer.
‘If that’s what it takes to maintain folks appearing proper, that’s advantageous’
Lawmakers and others are divided about whether or not something has modified — and in that case, why.
Rep. Abby Main, a Pennsylvania Republican, says male colleagues have handled ladies higher after latest sexual harassment scandals.
“I think maybe the men are afraid to do anything lest I am doing a press conference about them next,” Main mentioned, referring to her disclosure {that a} fellow consultant in 2022 propositioned her and adopted her to her automotive. “If that’s what it takes to keep people acting right, then that’s fine. I’ll be the boogeyman.”
Michigan Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who filed a sexual harassment criticism in opposition to Republican state Sen. Peter Lucido in 2020, mentioned enhancements have much less to do with coverage adjustments and extra to do with the very fact extra ladies are in cost.
“By our very nature, we changed how the Legislature operates,” she mentioned.
Lucido didn’t reply to requests for remark.
In accordance with information stored by the Middle for American Girls and Politics at Rutgers College, the variety of feminine state lawmakers noticed the best rise in 2018 for the reason that Nineties, largely pushed by the success of Democratic ladies in that 12 months’s midterms. Girls now occupy 33% of all legislative seats nationwide, though illustration by state varies.
Others nonetheless see sexism, particularly in male-dominated, Republican-majority chambers.
“Sometimes it feels like we should just smile more and not be disruptive and not challenge anyone. That hasn’t gone away,” mentioned Georgia state Rep. Shea Roberts, who resigned as Democratic Caucus treasurer to protest after the caucus chief was accused final 12 months of sexually harassing a staffer.
Coming ahead typically has different penalties
Even with up to date sexual harassment insurance policies and cultural shifts, the choice to report is fraught.
Misconduct reviews could also be dealt with by a 3rd celebration or extra generally, by ethics committees or caucus management. Accusers typically contemplate which leaders and events are in energy, in keeping with the Nationwide Girls’s Protection League.
“This is a political workplace and therefore harassment issues inside of the statehouse are inherently political,” mentioned Emma Davidson Tribbs, the NWDL’s founding director.
Consultants say a 3rd celebration is essential to making sure a good investigation and to encourage reporting.
Solely about one-quarter of legislative chambers require exterior investigations when such complaints are made, in keeping with AP’s survey. Dozens of others permit exterior investigations on the case-by-case discretion of legislative leaders.
Oregon’s Legislative Fairness Workplace, which investigates complaints, present in its annual report launched earlier this month that legislative employees reached out to the workplace greater than another group.
Oregon Democratic state Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin was certainly one of two feminine lawmakers who filed complaints about undesirable touching by a fellow senator in 2017.
“I still remember the first time I turned on the radio and heard my name and people talking about my breasts or my thighs,” she instructed the AP. “It felt very, very invasive. And it made it a lot more clear to me why people don’t make their complaints or why they don’t come forward.”
Regardless of authorized protections in opposition to retaliation, accusers’ reputations and careers typically take successful after coming ahead.
Gabrielle Brock, then a communications staffer for Indiana Senate Democrats, was 23 when she and three different ladies accused then-Lawyer Normal Curtis Hill, a Republican, of groping them at a 2018 celebration. Their accusations led to a misconduct listening to earlier than the state Supreme Court docket and Hill’s regulation license was suspended for 30 days.
Hill, who denied the allegations, misplaced his 2020 reelection bid thereafter and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2024.
Brock and the opposite ladies left their jobs within the Statehouse in consequence.
“I felt like that story overshadowed any work that I was doing for the state, for my caucus at the time,” Brock mentioned.
Brock had discovered a ardour for working in authorities however says the Statehouse atmosphere made it too uncomfortable a spot to work.
“Every woman had a story of some kind of inappropriate interaction, primarily with an elected official,” she mentioned.
The ladies dropped a lawsuit in opposition to Hill final December, saying by means of their legal professional they felt the trial would deliver no reduction — financial or in any other case.
When reached for remark, Hill referred to as the unique allegations “vague” and “thin.”
‘We’re blaming the mistaken folks’
Males nonetheless make up two-thirds of all state lawmakers within the U.S. and although #MeToo has primarily spotlighted ladies’s voices, some say the reckoning gave them the area to hitch ladies in discussing misconduct and to acknowledge extra work is required.
Republican state Rep. Mark Schreiber of Kansas, who joined the Legislature in 2017, mentioned he noticed a “boys will be boys” ethos when he began coming to the Statehouse a long time in the past as a utility firm govt. That later gave solution to acknowledging harassment — whereas nonetheless blaming ladies.
In more moderen years, he mentioned, males realized, “We’re blaming the wrong people,” and “We need to correct the behavior of these men.”
Advocates and lawmakers alike hope that enhancements proceed, saying hostile work environments stay pervasive sufficient to maintain ladies from operating for workplace.
“When men run for office, it’s about whether they can do the job,” mentioned Erin Maye Quade, a Minnesota Democratic senator. “When women run for office, it’s about a lot more than that.”
Many query the general progress of #MeToo, pointing to sexual misconduct allegations in opposition to a number of of President Donald Trump’s cupboard nominees and the president himself — a lot of whom have denied them.
“It sends a message of normalization about this kind of behavior,” mentioned Debbie Walsh, director of the Middle for American Girls and Politics.
“I do think things are better than they were. I do think the MeToo movement had an impact,” she added. “But that momentum has to stay because it doesn’t just get fixed in a couple of years.”
