House Adopts Resolution to Expose Members Who Used Taxpayer Money to Settle
The House Ethics Committee said it “does not handle sexual harassment lawsuits or have any involvement in settlements of such claims.”
The House of Representatives voted 420-0 to pass a resolution to expose lawmakers who used taxpayer money to settle misconduct claims.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) voted present, describing the resolution as “political theater.”
Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) presented the resolution:
The resolution, introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., would require the House Ethics Committee to “preserve and publicly release” records related to monetary settlements involving sexual misconduct.
Massie, a frequent thorn in House GOP leadership’s side, forced a vote on the resolution, arguing that gaps in reporting requirements enacted in 2018 may still allow taxpayer-funded settlements to remain hidden.
The Kentucky lawmaker said he discovered there were no reported cases involving any members repaying sexual harassment settlements since then.
“We need to know what’s been going on here in the House of Representatives in order to convince the people and assure the people that we are conducting the people’s business with the utmost integrity and treating the officers and employees of this institution with the respect that they deserve,” Massie told the chamber during a floor speech.
The resolution forces the “ethics panel and the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to publicly report sexual misconduct cases involving lawmakers and their staff that resulted in taxpayer-funded settlements, along with the total amount of taxpayer money spent.”
The push comes after Reps. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) resigned due to sexual misconduct allegations.
The House Ethics Committee said it “does not handle sexual harassment lawsuits or have any involvement in settlements of such claims.”
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee forced the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to release settlements, revealing that taxpayers shelled out over “$300,000 to settle claims against House lawmakers or their offices” since the early 2000s.
The practice ended in 2018, though, forcing members of Congress to settle on their own. The Ethics Committee claimed no one had notified members of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment by a Member.
But those records are why Mace voted present. Mace wondered why Congress would vote on something she had already released.
The House rejected Mace’s resolution a few months ago that would have compelled “the Ethics Committee to release information on its investigations of lawmakers who have been accused of sexual misconduct.”
The leaders of the Ethics panel disagreed with Mace due to how it could affect the victims.
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Comments
Good, for once Congress is acting like they actually work for the people.
Operative term: “acting”.
Imagine the pompous arrogance required to use taxpayers’ money to settle your sexual harassment accusations.
We the people, for the most part, have no real representation in D.C.
The only people represented in Congress have seven or eight figure bank accounts. The rest of us are on our own. Prepare accordingly.
according to Grok, the median net worth of US senators is $4+ million this may be how they do it on a congressional salary
https://www.govgreed.com/
Sounds fair. If they don’t want their scandals exposed they can pay people off with their own money.
This should get very interesting 🤔🤣
How about applying it to Members of Congress, Staff and the Family of Members/Sr Staff involving any issues on Govt property plus require Members to notify Ethics Committee for any complaints against them or their Staff.within 72 hours.
How about focussing on issues that matter deeply with most Americans?
How about gettting the naysayers on board with the SAVE Act?
Mace seems to be correct that this is pure theater, since the Ethics Committee doesn’t handle such cases, and would have no knowledge of them.
It’s also completely plausible that there have been no such cases in recent years; the 2018 resolution already bars using the ordinary employee settlement fund for such settlements, so the most obvious explanation is that it hasn’t been used for them, exactly as the resolution said should happen.
But it’s also plausible because the entire “scandal” was always completely overblown. There was never a “secret slush fund to cover up sexual misconduct by congressmen”. What there was and still is, is a fund to cover settlements of all employee lawsuits. Congress has at least 10,000 employees, and with any workforce of that size there are bound to be lawsuits, over all kinds of things. And many of these suits, whether justified or not, will settle; that’s just the nature of things. Few of these will be for sexual misconduct by anyone, and of those that are very few will be for such misconduct by a congressman. But because it was possible for a sexual lawsuit against a congressman to be paid out of that fund, the whole fund was labeled as some sort of sordid secret slush fund, even if the average annual number of such settlements was approximately zero.