Congressional Accountability Act of 1995 Reform Bill

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, Senator Blunt and I were here on the floor earlier to talk about the bill that was just passed through the Senate unanimously. That is the bill dealing with sexual harassment and other harassment rules of the Congress. This was a joint effort, and I wish to take this opportunity, first of all, to thank everyone who was involved in this.

First and foremost is Senator Blunt, who has been a true partner. We have worked on everything together, from adoption to tourism. Last month, when he took over from Senator Shelby's able leadership of the Rules Committee, he and I worked together on changing the Senate rules, for the first time in the history of the Senate, to be more family friendly. We worked with Senator Tammy Duckworth so that her baby will be allowed on the floor, as will other children of male and female Senators going forward.

The world is changing, and the Senate needs to change with it, and I would argue that the Senate should be in the lead.

It is no surprise, then, that we have had a number of women staff members take the lead and work with us on this bill. First is Lizzy Peluso, who is my lead and the ranking member's staff director of our Rules Committee. She was my chief of staff for a number of years and moved over to be our lead on the Rules Committee. She has done a tremendous job ushering in this legislation by listening to Members' concerns and working with people on the legislation.

There is also Stacy McBride, who has the same role working for Senator Blunt and has worked with him on this. We thank her for her help as well.

I also want to mention Erin Sager Vaughn, who works with Senator Schumer and has really done a lot of work on this bill.

It just was a team effort.

To John Abegg, from Senator McConnell's office, thank you for your help as well.

I want to thank Travis Talvitie from my office for his work on this bill.

This was a bill that was a long time in coming. I notice that there has been some excellent work over in the House. We want to thank Representative Speier and others who have been involved in their bill. We know it is a little different than our bill. We look forward to hearing them out and working with them as we move forward.

I did want to thank our colleagues in the Senate who supported this bill and worked with us. That would be Senator Gillibrand, who has been such a leader on this issue, Senator Murphy, Senator McCaskill, and Senator Harris. Also, I want to thank our Rules Committee working group: Senator Feinstein, Senator Cortez Masto, Senator Capito, and Senator Fischer. All are women who serve on the Rules Committee and know we had to change the rules.

I would say about this bill what Senator Enzi would always say about his work with Senator Ted Kennedy: You have to start with the 80 percent that you agree on.

We found a lot to agree on when it came to reforming the process in the Senate, which was literally staff against victims. It didn't include interns. It didn't include a number of people who had worked in the Senate. It was a very difficult process for people to bring claims.

Of course, our goal here is a safe workplace, not only in the Senate and in the House, not only in all of the Federal Government, but really across the country. So as much as this debate has been focused on people who serve in positions of power--as it well should be--we also have to remember the nurse on the frontline in the hospital and the factory worker on the poultry line in Minnesota, and we should have protections in place at all workplaces. I know this discussion is going on across America, and we are more than ready to be part of that discussion.

So what is the problem? First of all, we have a situation where we had a 30-day forced counseling period. If someone were to bring a harassment claim in the Senate, they had to go through 30 days of forced mediation, even if they didn't want to mediate the claim. We had a 30-day forced cooling-off period before they could have access to a court. They could have been forced into a nondisclosure agreement. Interns had no protection at all, and there was no actual transparency around awards or settlement. It was literally set up to muzzle the victims in these cases.

So what have we done? First of all, Senator Grassley and I worked on this last fall, along with Senator Shelby and others, and on mandatory training. I appreciate the leadership of Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer in working with us on this and getting this done quickly so that every staff member in the Senate, including every Senator, now goes through sexual harassment training. That had to happen for the first time by the end of January, and that happened.

We also were concerned that victims weren't reporting incidents. After all, 75 percent of individuals who experienced sexual harassment at work didn't report it. So we wanted to make sure we improved the process so that would change.

What does this legislation do? First of all, as I mentioned, it overhauls the process. That was our first and major goal--to make it easier for victims. It allows a victim to immediately pursue an administrative hearing or file a civil action--none of these cooling- off periods that are mandatory. It maintains the option for an employee to go into mediation.

Secondly, there are immediate protections for staff. The bill that just passed the Senate provides employees with immediate access to a dedicated advocate who would provide consultation and assistance and figure all of the options that they have and work with them on that.

As I mentioned, it covers interns, detailees, and others who work in the Senate as unpaid staff. It provides opportunities for employees to work remotely or request paid leave without fear of retribution, after they have made a complaint. It requires that a notification of rights of employees be posted within every employing office of the legislative branch, including State and district offices. There are a number of other provisions, which I will put in the Record, that are put in to immediately protect staff.

Last, there is accountability for Members. This bill holds Members of the House and Senate personally liable by requiring them to repay awards and settlements stemming from acts of harassment that they personally commit and ensures that Members who leave office would still be responsible for repaying the Treasury, including garnishing nongovernment wages and retirement annuities to ensure repayment.

It requires public reporting of awards and settlements, including identifying if a Member of the House or Senate was personally liable. It also requires claims to be automatically referred to the Committee on Ethics for investigation or further action when there is a final award or settlement.

Those are the top lines of the bill, but I think we know that it is more than words on a page. It is more than going back and forth about which provision would be better. This is really about the cases that we have seen in the Senate and the House--that they be handled correctly, and that we have a new and improved workplace going forward so that all people feel safe, so that the culture here feels safe, and so that we can be true leaders for workplaces across the country.

Again, this wouldn't have happened without the decision of many Members who work here to, one, go out of their comfort zone and, two, decide they were more interested in getting something done than having a messaging bill. That is what every Senator here decided--that it was more important to change this process.

A year from now--once we get this passed through the House, and we work with them and we get this done--I believe we are going to come back and have a different story to tell about the workplaces that we work in.

I wish to thank my colleagues for making that decision to concretely get something done instead of just pointing fingers at each other.

Thank you.

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