Ted Cruz on Thursday became the sole Republican male to join the men of the Senate Democratic Caucus in calling for a vote on rewriting Capitol Hill’s workplace harassment rules — a public show of solidarity with every female senator in both parties.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) organized the planned appeal to the chamber’s leaders in both parties for a floor debate on modernizing the Hill’s misconduct policy in support of a recent push by all 22 female senators. Cruz, the chief GOP co-author of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D-N.Y.) strict Hill harassment overhaul bill, was courted to sign on to the Democratic men’s letter and ultimately agreed in the final hours before its release.


"Senator Merkley is pleased to have Senator Cruz join this critical effort," Merkley spokesman Ray Zaccaro said. "There is no place for sexual harassment in Congress, and Senator Merkley looks forward to a broad bipartisan effort to make the Senate a harassment-free workplace."

Merkley's office was prepared to send the letter without having won any GOP signatures but extended the deadline for Cruz to sign on after the Texas Republican's spokeswoman made positive comments on the harassment push Wednesday night.

“Sen. Cruz appreciates Sen. Merkley’s efforts to urge a vote on Gillibrand-Cruz, and he told Sen. Merkley last week he’d be more than happy to sign a letter,” Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said late Wednesday. “In fact, Sen. Cruz has personally urged GOP leadership to mark up Gillibrand-Cruz, and he is working to get additional senators to sign the letter in support of the legislation.”

Asked earlier Wednesday whether he would join Democratic men on the letter pushing for a harassment vote, Cruz called the harassment legislation “the right thing to do.”


“We should have passed it weeks ago, and so anything I can do to encourage my colleagues — Republican or Democrat — to take it up on the floor of the Senate, I’m supportive of doing,” Cruz said in an interview.

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The Thursday letter calling for changes to Hill harassment policy is addressed to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and is co-signed by 31 male Democratic senators as well as Cruz.

Schumer was the sole male Democrat to not sign on, as a leader on the receiving end, but he has long supported taking up the harassment legislation that the House passed on a bipartisan basis in February.

“If we fail to act immediately to address this systemic problem in our own workplace, we will lose all credibility in the eyes of the American public regarding our capacity to protect victims of sexual harassment or discrimination in any setting,” the male senators’ letter states.


The letter also aligns with all 22 female senators in expressing “disappointment” that the Senate has failed to follow the House in taking up workplace misconduct legislation.

Despite the absence of all but one male Republican from the letter, others in their ranks are vocal proponents of taking up the proposed modernization of Hill harassment policy that was first established more than two decades ago.

"I think we ought to pass it," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chief author of the 1995 law that first applied workplace safety regulations to Congress, told reporters Thursday.

The House-passed harassment bill, the product of extensive bipartisan talks in that chamber, would require lawmakers to personally pay the costs of harassment or discrimination claims filed by employees that stem from their behavior, among other reforms. The legislation stemmed from a wave of sexual misconduct scandals that gripped Congress last fall, forcing the resignation or retirement of a half-dozen lawmakers in both parties.

At the same time as it passed that legislation, which requires Senate action and President Donald Trump’s signature to become law, the House also passed a separate, immediately executed change to its own internal rules that creates an Office of Employee Advocacy to represent the interests of workplace misconduct victims, among other changes.

Senate negotiators in both parties had hoped to attach Hill harassment legislation to last month’s $1.3 trillion government spending deal. But sources said those talks ran aground amid resistance from some in the Senate to force lawmakers to pay out of pocket for discrimination settlements stemming from their behavior, as well as harassment claims.

House Republicans and Democrats have maintained support for their chamber’s more expansive lawmaker-liability language, while Senate Democrats have said they would raise no objection. A McConnell spokesman said in response to the female senators’ appeal last month that the majority leader “supports members being personally, financially liable for sexual misconduct in which they have engaged.”

A McConnell spokesman said Wednesday night that Senate negotiators in both parties were continuing to work on harassment legislation.