Women in office in Washington and in statehouses around the US are working on policies to prevent sexual assault and overhaul the procedures for reporting it

As a growing list of powerful men across Hollywood and the media are undone by sexual harassment allegations, Congress too is having a #MeToo moment.

An influential Democratic congresswoman, Jackie Speier, alleged she was assaulted as a congressional staffer. Mary Bono, a former Republican representative, told the Associated Press about “suggestive comments” she had received from a colleague. Democratic congresswoman Linda Sanchez recalled a “more senior member who outright propositioned me”.

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Speier is encouraging Capitol Hill staffers to share their stories under the hashtag #MeTooCongress. One woman responding to the social media call was Briony Whitehouse, who has alleged that she was groped in an elevator by a Republican senator when she was a 19-year-old intern. “I didn’t know what to do, so I did nothing at all,” Whitehouse said.

Increasingly for women on Capitol Hill, that sounds like a familiar story.

As an intern, had Whitehouse tried to pursue a complaint, it would probably have been thrown out under Congress’s unique labor policies for reporting sexual assault. Even if she had been a staffer, the process presents a mountain of opposition.

Speier, a California congresswoman, told the Guardian: “The complaint process sends a clear message: survivors are on their own, targets for retaliation, and can kiss their careers goodbye. The only thing that is protected is the institution.”

Before congressional employees can file a formal complaint against an alleged abuser, they must submit to months of mandated “counseling” and “mediation”, as well as sign a non-disclosure agreement promising not to speak about the case in perpetuity. And that’s just the beginning.

Once mediation – a process that lasts a minimum of 30 days and is done with a representative from the alleged abuser’s office – is finished, accusers must endure a month-long “cooling off” period before filing paperwork in a 90-day window.

If they do persevere, are vindicated, and finally reach a settlement, compensation is paid not by the perpetrator or his office but by the American taxpayer.

“The part that’s most troubling to me is the ‘cooling off’ period,” Democratic congresswoman Brenda Lawrence told the Guardian. “If you’ve been sexually harassed and you’re filing a complaint, you have a right for that complaint to be filed efficiently.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Congresswomen Maxine Waters, Brenda Lawrence and Debbie Dingell during the Women’s Convention in Detroit, Michigan, on 28 October 2017. Photograph: Rebecca Cook/Reuters

Lawrence previously investigated sexual harassment cases and followed them to court as a former human resources manager and certified Equal Employment Opportunity investigator for a federal agency in Michigan.

Yet until she came to Washington, she had never heard of a mandated “cooling off” period for accusers. If anything, she said, the urgency was all in the other direction.

“We had timelines. I had to meet with the accuser within 30 days,” she said.

Lawrence herself was drawn into the spate of accusations on Tuesday when three former aides accused her chief of staff of “inappropriate” behavior and comments, in anonymous interviews with Politico, and said they had brought his alleged misconduct to the congresswoman’s attention.

In a statement to the Guardian Lawrence said: “None of the concerns brought to my attention involved allegations of sexual harassment – behavior that I will not tolerate. Had I been made aware of any concerns about sexual harassment in my office, those concerns would have been promptly investigated and appropriate disciplinary action taken, including termination of employment of any individual engaged in sexually harassing behavior.”

She also said she would work with investigative authorities both in and outside of Congress to “take appropriate corrective action as necessary”.

Making matters worse is that on the Hill, each personal office and committee operates by its own set of rules; there is no central department of human resources, the intuitive place to go. Instead staffers seeking to file a report must reach out to the office of compliance (OOC), a resource that most don’t know exists, according to a recent Roll Call survey.



If they do manage to find the OOC and report something, the protocol in place there seems to provide accusers with less help than hindrance.

The rules for the OOC were created in 1995 in the wake of allegations levelled against the then Republican senator Bob Packwood, Politico has reported. And as recent events have made clear, they didn’t go far enough.

But this isn’t just a Washington problem.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand filed a bill to streamline the system for reporting complaints. Photograph: Jerod Harris/Getty Images

Sexual harassment has roiled statehouses around the country, with allegations in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Illinois. In California, where Speier came up through the ranks of the state legislature, nearly 200 women signed a letter describing a culture of rampant sexism. And while some improvements may be on the way – the California senate leader, Kevin de León, who recently announced his bid for the US Senate, is hiring an independent firm to investigate allegations in the state capitol – there are, it seems increasingly clear, as many toothless procedures for reporting sexual harassment as there are state capitols.

One underlying aspect of the problem is that lawmakers and their staffs are not required to undergo anti-sexual harassment training.

Evidence that such training can stop or seriously deter sexual harassment is spotty, but Lawrence said that as an investigator one of the first things she would ask was: “Has this person been made aware that this behavior is unacceptable?” If so, the accuser had a stronger case.

That’s why Lawrence thinks the first step in reforming the culture on Capitol Hill is is to make anti-harassment training mandatory. “We mandate it for other military and federal employees. How did we get exempt?” She introduced a bill mandating such training last month, and last week Speier introduced her own bill, which would go even further. The Republican House speaker, Paul Ryan, urged such training be required in a “Dear Colleague” letter, and the Democratic House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, has also signaled her support. Over in the Senate, Republican Chuck Grassley has proposed anti-harassment training be mandatory in the upper chamber as well, noting in a letter to the rules committee that staffers already receive mandatory training in things such as cybersecurity.

A second bill of Speier’s, expected to drop this week, would require “climate surveys” to help get a sense of the scope of the problem, as well as an overhaul of the complaint process at the office of compliance.

And Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand filed a bill to streamline the system for reporting complaints, which would have those made by congressional interns handled the same as those by regular staffers. “Congress should never be above the law or play by their own set of rules,” she said.

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This isn’t the first time lawmakers have tried to improve the system. Speier’s bill mandating harassment training passed the House several years ago, only to be abandoned in the Senate. But this time lawmakers have the benefit of a public spotlight.

The House administration committee has announced a November hearing on sexual harassment prevention policies. And Susan Tsui Grundmann, executive director of the office of compliance, told the Guardian “we absolutely support” the newest push to mandate training.

As Grassley has noted, passing legislation will not be required, since all that would be needed is a resolution to change internal congressional rules. Bills mandating training in the House and Senate still must clear their respective chambers, but that is all.

And they wouldn’t require a signature from the president.