Legislature paid $1.9M in 25 years to settle claims, attorney’s report says

A report compiled by a Los Angeles attorney details $1.9 million in sexual harassment settlements by the Legislature in the past 25 years.

The report by Ryan C. Hughes, the founder of Tuple Legal, is the most complete picture yet of claims paid out at a time when the Legislature is under increasing scrutiny in the wake of sexual harassment and assault claims from scores of women. It also seeks to bring attention to some of the ways in which Hughes said the Legislature has used settlement agreements to keep allegations quiet. These include not just nondisclosure clauses but no-reemployment clauses that prevent accusers from finding new jobs in the Legislature.

Hughes, a former legislative staffer, said he personally knows women who were subjected to “serious” harassment in the Capitol.

“As I was seeing little bits and pieces of this coming through in media reports, I just felt the need to produce a fuller picture for people to see,” Hughes said.

The report suggests more details about past settlements could be coming. In one section, Hughes writes that “confidentiality clauses are not worth the paper on which they are printed.”

Debra Gravert, chief administrative officer of the Assembly Rules Committee, confirmed her office provided information to Hughes.

The information they provided covered “any personnel matter” and did not specify which settlements were for sexual harassment claims, she said. Gravert also confirmed that no-reemployment clauses appeared in two settlements provided.

“I can only verify the accuracy of the information going back to 2008,” Gravert said. “Anything prior to that is based on news articles, not settlement agreements in my possession.”

The report notes more than $300,000 in payments that may or may not have been for sexual harassment. Hughes said he compiled the information from a variety of sources, including media reports and requests for settlement documents he obtained through requests under the Legislative Open Records Act.

“It’s as complete a picture as the documents we have can provide,” Hughes said. “The Legislature, of course, has documents it is not producing about investigations that would obviously create a clearer picture.”

The use of no-reemployment clauses meshes with testimony given at an Assembly hearing on Tuesday. Lobbyist Pamela Lopez testified about harassment and assault she experienced in the Capitol, then said that women who complain are “disappeared” from the Legislature to keep them quiet.

“If some credible digging has found evidence for nearly $2 million in settlement payments, my next thought is, ‘What wasn’t found?’” Lopez said.

According to Hughes, the no-reemployment clauses did not appear in every settlement, and appeared most often in settlements from many years ago. In some cases, the clauses had expiration dates. One was used in a 2015 settlement made on behalf of former Assemblyman Steve Fox, he said.

“Why is it the victims who are disappeared and not the perpetrators?” asked Genie Harrison, a plaintiffs’ attorney who handles employment cases. “It is an outrageous clause to include.”

Harrison, who runs her own firm, said these clauses mean in effect that victims voluntarily resign, giving up health insurance, pensions and future employment prospects. She testified at the Tuesday hearing on behalf of the Consumer Attorneys of California.

A representative of Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, said no-reemployment clauses have not been used in that body since Rendon became speaker in March 2016. A spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, said the Senate has not paid out any sexual harassment settlements since he took the post in October 2014.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Micha Star Liberty, who has been retained by at least one former staffer, said no-reemployment clauses are “common in the corporate world but should not be used in the Legislature.”

The Legislature has lost a large amount of talent in recent years due to harassment, she said, but the attitude is that there is an endless supply of young talent to hire for legislative staff. She said she saw the same thing working in Washington, D.C. early in her career.

“Every job opening would get 20 applicants who were way overqualified,” Liberty said. “But we shouldn’t use that line of thinking when women are reporting bad behavior.”

Davis attorney Mary-Alice Coleman negotiated at least one of the agreements that appeared on the list. She said much of the focus in agreements is to get victims to voluntarily give up their legal rights.

“It’s improper to put confidentiality clauses in these settlement agreements, because they are subject to disclosure under the Legislative Open Records Act,” Coleman said. “It’s also against public policy to force these types of events to be secret. That’s how you get serial harassers and repeat harassment.”

In fact, settlement agreements by government bodies are generally voted on in public — meaning information can be found in public records, if one knows where to look.

Hughes said the agreements he has acquired often include the names of victims, but not alleged perpetrators or specific details about the harassment claims.

“The Legislature knows the details of the investigation don’t need to be disclosed [in a settlement], so it goes out of its way to put as little info in these settlements as possible, knowing they will be disclosed,” Hughes said.