The House on Tuesday approved a resolution directing the Ethics Committee to name all lawmakers who have been involved in sexual harassment cases that have paid out settlements with taxpayer dollars.
The measure, offered by Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, also requires disclosure of the settlement amounts.
“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,” Mr. Massie said.
Tuesday’s 420-0 House vote is the only step needed to force disclosure of the records.
The 1995 Congressional Accountability Act barred workplace harassment among lawmakers and their staff and set up a government fund to settle claims.
Congress updated the law in 2018 amid a wave of sexual harassment cases to end taxpayer funding for settlements involving lawmakers, forcing them to foot the bill for their own misconduct.
Mr. Massie said his resolution is designed to provide more transparency around settlements paid between 1995 and 2018 and close a potential loophole of the updated law.
“Even though we get an annual report now [of] which offices in the House have paid out settlements, and whether those settlements impose a requirement on the member in that office to pay back that taxpayer money, what I have discovered is that there have been no reports [showing] that any any member of Congress has settled a claim against a staffer [and] is responsible for paying back that claim,” he said.
Mr. Massie said the definition of “covered claims” under the 2018 update appears to be narrowly crafted and, whether intentionally or not, may have allowed some claims to escape the requirement that lawmaker-involved settlements be reported and paid back.
The House Oversight Committee previously subpoenaed the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights for a list of settlements paid prior to enactment of the 2018 law.
Rep. Nancy Mace, South Carolina Republican, released the subpoenaed records in May.
The files revealed taxpayers paid more than a half-million dollars in sexual harassment-related settlements since 2007.
Those settlements came from cases involving seven former House members: Democrats Alcee Hastings of Florida, Eric Massa of New York and John Conyers of Michigan, and Republicans Blake Farenthold of Texas, Patrick Meehan of Pennsylvania, Rodney Alexander of Louisiana and Carolyn McCarthy of New York.
Files on the Hastings’ settlement were not included in the initial batch given to Ms. Mace, which made her question whether she has all of the responsive records to her subpoena.
“How many more settlements are buried waiting to be uncovered?” she said. “American taxpayers are not a slush fund for Congress to buy its way out of accountability.”
The Office of Congressional Workplace Rights said case files prior to 2004 were destroyed under a previous record retention policy.
