SACRAMENTO — Republican candidate for governor Travis Allen and at least six other current and former state lawmakers were accused of sexual harassment over the last decade, according to a batch of documents released by the Legislature on Friday.

In a reversal of longstanding policy, legislative leaders released over 100 pages of documents detailing harassment claims against 18 lawmakers and high-ranking staffers that its investigations found to have engaged in misconduct since 2006. The accusations range from inappropriate comments to groping to explicit emails.

The release, made in the midst of a powerful movement against sexual misconduct in the workplace and promises of reform in the state Legislature, followed pressure from this news organization and others to make the secret documents public.

The current lawmakers named in the heavily redacted records include Allen, R-Huntington Beach, Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Inglewood, Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, and Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, who is on leave pending an investigation into harassment complaints against him. Also named are former Democratic Assemblymen Steve Fox and Raul Bocanegra and former Sen. Rod Wright.

Allen was counseled in 2013 after two women said he made them uncomfortable, according to the documents. Hertzberg was warned about his behavior in 2015 after an employee complained that he pulled her in close and began dancing with her and singing her a song. Burke was accused of having a conversation about anal sex with her staffers in her office, according to a letter sent to the assemblywoman early last year.

Here are more details about some of the cases:

• According to a 2013 record, one woman said Allen gave her shoulder squeezes from behind and “made a practice of being unnecessarily close.” One time, the woman reported, he stood with his arms spread open inside her office door and when she waved, he responded, “You can do better than that.” Another woman reportedly said that Allen “petted” her hand after they shook hands.

The document says that a staffer for the Rules Committee brought the complaints to Allen’s attention and “reminded him to be conscious of his conduct.” Allen told the staffer he “could not recall a time when he might have been too familiar with staff,” but did recall times when women had “become overly friendly with him” at an event outside of work.

Allen denied that he had ever acted inappropriately in a statement Friday, suggesting that the release of documents was politically motivated.

“The release of this unsubstantiated complaint is a political attack by a Democrat-led committee,” Allen said. “I’m sure I’ve shaken many people’s hands, tapped many people on the shoulder, and have even tapped people’s feet accidentally. But there has never been anything in any of my actions that has been inappropriate, and nor will there ever be.”

• Another complaint was substantiated against Burke, who “participated in an inappropriate conversation regarding anal sex with Capitol office staff,” according to a letter sent to her from the Assembly’s human resources director. Burke admitted to doing so, according to the letter.

“This claim involved an after-hours conversation in which my staff member shared a personal story about his experiences as a young gay man with me and a group of co-workers,” Burke said in a statement. “The claim was filed by a disgruntled former staff member who participated in the conversation. When this claim was brought to my attention, I took full responsibility for my part.” The conversation happened in spring 2016, a spokesman said.

• According to the documents, a staffer for Hertzberg complained in April 2015 that he interrupted a conversation about the paint color of his office, grabbed her, and then started dancing with her and singing her a song. “This interaction was uncomfortable and unwelcome by the staffer,” a memo about the complaint read.

In December, the Sacramento Bee reported that two sitting lawmakers and a former legislator complained that Hertzberg’s lingering embraces made them uncomfortable. Hertzberg was so well known in the Capitol for his hugs that he earned the nickname “Huggy Bear.”

In a statement Friday, Hertzberg criticized the handling of documents as problematic, noting that the memo explaining his actions was dated February 2018 and that other notes about the case were handwritten. “This instance, a settled matter from several years ago, involves a single occurrence with a family member of someone I knew, and I’m sorry to her and anyone else who may have ever felt my hugs unwelcome,” he said.

• The documents included two settlements involving Fox, who served a single term in the Assembly. In March 2017, the former assemblyman and the Assembly agreed to pay $100,000 to his former district director, Nancy Finnigan, who accused him in 2013 of creating a hostile work environment, in part by exposing himself to her. In another July 2015 settlement that does not appear to be related to sexual harassment, Fox and the Assembly agreed to pay a total of $125,000 to a former staffer who accused him of making her do unpaid work on his campaign.

• Years before he was convicted of felony perjury and voter fraud charges in 2014, Democratic Sen. Rod Wright was found to have used “coarse and vulgar language” to his staff and was given a “sternly worded admonishment,” according to an April 2010 letter from the Senate Rules Committee.

• In 2007, an intern in the office of Congressman Tom McClintock, who was then a state senator, wrote a letter to the Senate accusing McClintock’s district director, Joe Giardiello, of being “prone to violent outbursts” and making sexually inappropriate comments. Most of the letter is redacted, but the intern says Giardiello made “offensive sexual jokes made at the expense of constituents and coworkers.”

“I am writing this letter because I am a die-hard Republican and I am very concerned about the devastating effects that certain information may have on the future of Senator McClintock’s career,” the intern wrote.

McClintock’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Giardiello died in December 2015.

In recent months, two lawmakers — Bocanegra and Assemblyman Matt Dababneh — stepped down after being publicly accused of such behavior. Mendoza, D-Artesia, is on leave pending a Senate investigation into claims he acted inappropriately with young interns in his offices.

Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, a Los Angeles County Democrat and leader of the Legislative Women’s Caucus, said she wasn’t surprised by the new information. “At this point, nothing surprises me anymore,” she said. “It’s more about saying how do we take these moments and we take the energy here to continue to push change?”

The Capitol’s anti-harassment We Said Enough campaign was critical of the release, issuing a statement saying it was incomplete and unclear. “The selective release of data related only to certain individuals serves only to further erode the trust that so many victims and survivors hope to rebuild,” the campaign said.

The Senate and Assembly have separate systems for handling complaints of sexual misconduct. Fear of retaliation and a lack of faith in the fairness of either process have discouraged victims and witnesses to report problems, activists say.

The Legislature held its first joint hearing on sexual misconduct last week, a step many hope will lead to a unified process with clear rules and guidelines. And on Thursday, the Senate finally passed a revived bill that would extend whistleblower protections to legislative employees who report misconduct and other ethical breaches. The same proposal by Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, previously stalled in the Senate appropriations committee for four consecutive years. The Assembly is expected to give it final approval next week.

The public airing of misconduct records is another shift triggered by the #MeToo movement and its extensive media coverage. Unlike other state entities, the Legislature has its own public records rules — the Legislative Open Records Act — that allows it to keep the cases secret. This news organization’s initial records request was denied last fall on the basis of one of the law’s loopholes.

Jessica Levinson, an election law, ethics and campaign finance expert at Loyola Law School, predicted before the records’ release that no sitting lawmaker on the list would be unscathed.

“Things have really changed in terms of the consequences for this behavior as a result of the #MeToo movement — meaning there are consequences,” she said. “For a sitting lawmaker, it’s not a death knell necessarily, but it would be a huge blow and it could embolden challengers.”

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Staffers, too, might find it hard to keep working in the Capitol once the misconduct findings against them are exposed, she said. “If anything makes Sacramento tick, it’s popularity,” Levinson said. “This is making people very unpopular.”