Lawmakers to hold hearing on sexual harassment

SACRAMENTO — For the first time in a decade, an Assembly subcommittee tasked with looking at harassment in the Capitol will hold a hearing. The Tuesday afternoon session was prompted by allegations of inappropriate behavior by three current legislators.

Critics of the Legislature’s sexual harassment policies say they are more interested in systemic changes that would force the institution to behave more like other employers.

According to a staff person for the subcommittee’s chair, Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, the hearing will look at the existing policies for reporting sexual misconduct in the Capitol and potential improvements.

The Assembly Rules Subcommittee on Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation Prevention and Response last met in 2007, according to Friedman’s staff. Adama Iwu, a founder of the #WeSaidEnough campaign, said Friedman’s staff told her the same thing.

#WeSaidEnough cataloged dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct made by women working in Sacramento. Iwu, a lobbyist for Visa Inc., went public with her own story of a man touching her “inappropriately” at a recent political event, though she has not named him.

Iwu said she is less concerned by the long gap in subcommittee meetings than by the Legislature’s reluctance to take meaningful action now.

“It’s been really disappointing, the actions of the Legislature so far,” Iwu said. “There is no trust. There is no confidence. Why don’t you just put in a confidential hotline?”

The Assembly and state Senate have hired outside firms to investigate harassment claims. Iwu said the Legislature should not be hiring its own investigators.

“The New York Times had a headline calling Sacramento a ‘haven for lechery’ on their front page,” Iwu said. “The best we can do is a hearing and having them hire another conflicted investigator?”

The widespread allegations have prompted calls for new laws. Women legislators have proposed bills banning secret settlements in sexual harassment cases and extending whistleblower protections to legislative staff.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Micha Star Liberty said the biggest problem is that existing laws applying to legislative staff aren’t enforced.

“Everyone in Sacramento is behaving as if there are no laws prohibiting sexual harassment and retaliation in the Capitol, which is simply not true,” said the principal with Liberty Law in Oakland. “The Fair Employment and Housing Act has been on the books for a long time, and it applies to both the Senate and Assembly.”

The Legislature has faced several personnel lawsuits in recent years, and these generally have cited the law commonly known as FEHA. The issue, Liberty said, is that the Legislature hasn’t followed the reporting requirements of the law.

For instance, she said, the Legislature often failed to treat a verbal report of harassment or other allegations as an official report, as FEHA requires. Staffers making verbal reports are often reassigned to other jobs or fired and required to sign a nondisclosure agreement as a condition of receiving a severance.

“Anyone receiving these complains has a legal duty to document them,” Liberty said. “We would have a much better sense of how widespread this is if both houses had done their duty and tracked their complaints.”

Liberty would like to see the Legislature keep a closer eye on warning signs that there are problems in a particular office. Frequent staff turnover can be one sign of trouble, she said, particularly when high-level staff are involved.

One of the three current legislators accused of misconduct, Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, fired three staffers in September. They included his chief of staff and legislative director, the most senior and highest-paid members of his staff.

Liberty has been retained by one of the three staffers but has not filed a lawsuit. According to news reports, the firings followed verbal complaints to Senate leadership about problems in the office, including Mendoza allegedly making improper overtures to a young intern placed in the office by the Senate Fellows program.

Another former staffer has publicly claimed Mendoza made improper advances towards her in 2008.

According to Senate payroll records, Mendoza’s office has seen numerous staff departures. Not counting the three recent firings, five of the 12 staffers employed by Mendoza in his Capitol and district offices departed last year. A sixth person left earlier this year. This rate of turnover is notable even among the rapidly-shifting legislative workforce.

Mendoza’s office has not returned phone calls seeking comment.

Meanwhile, four of the nine people listed as working for Assemblyman Devon Mathis, R-Visalia, as of February this year had left by the end of August, including his chief of staff. According to multiple news reports, the Sacramento Police Department investigated allegations Mathis sexually assaulted a staff member outside work hours, but that investigation has been dropped. Mathis has denied the charges.

Mathis’ office did not return calls seeking comment.