Following a string of sexual misconduct scandals in the House earlier this year, lawmakers pledged to overhaul how the chamber — and Congress in general — handles allegations in order to protect staff.
But months have passed since the high-profile resignations of Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-California) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) following allegations of misconduct involving congressional aides — and Republican leadership has yet to prioritize any action on stricter ethics rules.
The day before House Speaker Mike Johnson canceled most of the House’s session in September, Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-New Mexico) and Kat Cammack (R-Florida) approached him in the chamber to let him know they wanted to introduce their long-awaited bipartisan ethics reform package before lawmakers left Washington before the election.
But Johnson was noncommittal.
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“It hadn’t been official that we weren’t going to have the time to be able to finalize and do the last bit of work we needed, so I was still pushing for us getting something done,” Leger Fernández told The Washington Sun, recalling the Sept. 2 conversation. “He knew in his mind he was going to cancel. So he was saying, ‘Well, you know, we’ll get something done, but I don’t know.’”
The following morning, House Republican leadership sent out the official notice canceling two weeks of session, giving members more time to hit the campaign trail but cutting legislative business short.
Leger Fernández and Cammack, the chairs of the Democratic and Republican women’s caucuses, respectively, have been working on a legislative package to overhaul how the House addresses sexual misconduct allegations. The joint effort was announced by both Johnson and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in May, but it has repeatedly stalled due to the House schedule being cut short this fall.
“I repeatedly pointed out that I had thought we should get these done earlier, but the constant breaks and interruptions in the legislative session have meant we haven’t been able to finalize the work,” Leger Fernández said.
Leger Fernández said that meant it was difficult to get input from staff: “We kept having to cancel steps that were important to move us forward.”
When House lawmakers return to Washington after the midterms, they will have just 20 legislative days in the Capitol to get anything done. That period is expected to be busy, particularly if Republicans lose the majority in one or both chambers of Congress: Lawmakers have to approve a spending bill since government funding runs out on Dec. 11, negotiate a must-pass Pentagon policy bill, and debate permitting reform and college sports legislation. Republicans are also weighing another reconciliation bill to pass their legislative agenda and extend the debt limit.
Cammack and Leger Fernández expect to introduce a package that would include proposals like prohibiting members from dating staffers (currently, they’re only barred from having romantic relationships with staff in their own offices), updating the Congressional Accountability Act (a law that requires Congress to follow employment laws that apply to the private sector), and creating a “one-stop shop” to make it easier for people to come forward with allegations, Cammack said. Both women’s caucuses have held multiple meetings and listening sessions with male and female staffers and members of Congress to come up with recommendations.
Given the crowded legislative calendar, even supporters pushing for action admit it’s likely to get punted.
“I’m not confident anything’s going to get done when we get back,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) told The Sun. “It’s going to be a disaster. I mean, we’re going to be trying to get through as much as we can, hopefully, before the end of the year. I don’t know how much of an appetite there is for ethics reform.”
“I don’t think women are taken seriously on the hill. Period,” added Mace, who said she’d personally support the efforts.
A senior House Republican, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, concurred, telling The Sun that the lame-duck business “will more likely dictate” whether ethics reform gets brought to the floor.
Still, Cammack told The Sun that she and Leger Fernández are “committed to getting a product out the door on the floor and passed by the end of this year.”
Cammack recalled that Johnson told her and Leger Fernández “that this is a priority and that he is going to do everything he can to help us make sure that this gets wrapped up by the end of the year.” Johnson’s office did not comment for this story.
But Democratic lawmakers pointed to Johnson’s record on issues related to sexual misconduct as a reason why they believe ethics reform will not get done. They noted he refused to bring a bill to the floor to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein, and he took nearly five months after allegations against Gonzales first came out to call on him to not run for reelection. The speaker is also supporting Rep. Max Miller’s (R-Ohio) reelection campaign despite allegations of domestic violence made by his ex-wife, and he dismissed concerns related to Rep. Cory Mills (R-Florida) after a judge issued a restraining order against him to protect his ex-girlfriend from “dating violence.”
“Anybody with ethics reform on their bingo card in the lame-duck session from Republicans should go get a new bingo card. It ain’t happening,” said one House Democrat, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If it does, it would be a shock to the world, and inconsistent with the way the Republicans have led for the last two years.”
A second House Democrat said, “I hope [Cammack] is right. But I’m not holding my breath.”
Jeffries told reporters in late September that there is an “expectation that there is going to be decisive action that Congress takes in a bipartisan way on this issue as soon as we return.” While Johnson has not publicly made any commitments, he has been supportive of some of the measures floated by Cammack and Leger Fernández, such as barring members from having romantic or sexual relationships with congressional staffers.
Members of Congress have pushed for reforms in the next session starting in January. At a House Rules Committee hearing in September for members to make suggestions to the rules package for the upcoming Congress, some lawmakers pushed to ban members from dating any congressional staffer, to update members’ training to prevent sexual misconduct, and to amend members’ code of conduct to ensure there are clear consequences for sexual misconduct, including facing expulsion votes and getting removed from committees.
“We need due process,” Leger Fernández, a House Rules Committee member, said at the hearing.
Some of the provisions in the House package would need Senate action, which Cammack said could add difficulties.
“If I’m being honest, it appears that the Senate seems more intent on passing college sports reforms than actually doing the work that the House has sent them, so that’s pretty frustrating, which is why we’ve also talked about just a rules package that would be [a resolution] that would have impacted the House only, but we know that the issue of sexual misconduct is not exclusive to the House, it’s on Senate side too,” Cammack said.
Both Leger Fernández and Cammack said they haven’t formally introduced a bill because lawmakers haven’t been on Capitol Hill to discuss the details and generate support for it. They considered introducing one during one of the brief pro forma sessions, when one member presides and no significant business is conducted.
“This is about cleaning up the House,” Cammack said. “There’s so many things that people are unaware of. We recognized early on there would be an education campaign, so introducing in a pro forma doesn’t exactly help us in driving that awareness campaign.”
Outside groups pushing for ethics reforms have grown impatient with the delays.
“You’ve had several members who are no longer running for reelection because of the issue, and all of those members have either resigned or have decided not to seek reelection because of public pressure, not because of a process has demanded they leave, but because of the public saying we don’t want these people to come back,” said Emma Davidson Tribbs, founding director of the National Women’s Defense League. “The public wants the system to be adjusted, and, to me, that says that they should be taking this seriously.”
Cheyenne Hunt, founder and executive director of Reckoning Action, told the Sun: “This is a story that women organizers know all too well: Our concerns and things that we take up as important are often put on the back burner.”
“I don’t have a profound amount of faith in Republicans prioritizing this in a lame-duck scenario,” she added.
Hunt, a lawyer and Democratic activist who played a key role in bringing allegations against Swalwell and former Maine Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner to light, said that she anticipates that any sort of change would take place in the next Congress, where Democrats are expected to have control of at least one chamber. Leger Fernández told The Sun that House Democratic leadership has committed to scheduling a vote on ethics reform next year if they win the majority in November.
The fact that the process has not been prioritized by Republican leadership “sends a clear message to women that there is still very much an old boys club in Washington that is gumming up the gears here to try and make Capitol Hill a safer place to work,” Hunt added.
“That should make all of us uncomfortable,” Hunt continued.
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