To: The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate
Congress: don’t use our money to protect sexual harassers
The American public deserves to know that their hard-earned tax dollars are not being used to protect sexual harassers.
Congress must prohibit congressional offices from using public money as "hush funds" to pay for sexual harassment settlements.
Why is this important?
Americans have a right to know how Congress is spending their tax dollars, and this hush money used to hide deplorable conduct by Members and their staffs is no exception.
That's why Congress must immediately pass legislation that prohibits lawmakers from using their Members Representational Allowances -- or any other public funds -- to settle sexual harassment cases.
Furthermore, we call on Congressional leadership in both parties to publicly disclose the names of Members of Congress and congressional staff who have used their offices' funds or any other account to pay sexual harassment or misconduct settlements. In doing so, victims' identities must be protected, unless they decide to reveal their names, and the date on which the settlement took place must be kept private to protect victims.
The opacity of how Congress handles harassment claims has enabled continued repulsive behavior to occur by Members and staff in the "People's House."
Ultimately, if congressional budgets were more transparent, heightened attention to harassment and misconduct settlements may have helped prevent some of these heinous acts.
We demand that Congress act now to stop using their taxpayer-funded office budgets from being spent to settle sexual harassment lawsuits -- and publicly disclose the name of all Members who have done so.