House kills effort to release all congressional sexual misconduct and harassment reports
WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to scuttle Republican Rep. Nancy Mace’s effort to shed light on sexual misconduct allegations against members of Congress.
Mace, a conservative Republican running for governor of South Carolina, forced a floor vote on her resolution ordering the House Ethics Committee to make public all reports on allegations of lawmakers and congressional aides engaging in sexual misconduct or harassment.
But by a vote of 357 to 65, the House voted to send the Mace resolution to committee — a decision that effectively killed it.
The ethics committee had encouraged members to vote to return the resolution. In a joint statement, the committee’s Republican and Democratic leaders argued that it “could hinder victim cooperation and witness participation in ongoing and future investigations” and would make it more difficult for the committee to “investigate and eliminate sexual misconduct in the House.”
“Here and elsewhere, perpetrators of sexual misconduct should never be shielded from accountability for their misdeeds,” said Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., and Ranking Member Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif.
But, they added, “victims may be retraumatized by the public disclosure of their agency work product, excerpts from interview transcripts and certain exhibits. And witnesses, who often speak to the Committee only in confidence or under the condition of future anonymity, could fear reprisals if their cooperation were made public.”
Mace has spoken openly about her own experiences as a sexual assault survivor and she has been at the center of the fight to release Jeffrey Epstein’s government files. She was one of four House Republicans who teamed up with Democrats on a discharge petition last fall that bypassed her own GOP leadership and ultimately led to the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files.
She said her resolution came after NBC News and other media outlets reported that a fellow Republican, Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, sent sexual text messages to an aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, with whom he allegedly had an affair before killing himself last year. Gonzales previously denied having an affair, but has not addressed the substance of the allegations since the text messages came to light.
Mace is among the Republicans who have called on Gonzales to resign.
“I would like members of Congress to tell their female colleagues where they stand on sexual harassment in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Mace told reporters. “Do you support the women here, who work here and who are your colleagues, or not?
Earlier Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee announced it would open an investigation into the allegations against Gonzales. House rules explicitly prohibit lawmakers from having relationships with members of their own staff.
In a brief statement, Gonzales said of the ethics investigation: “I welcome the opportunity to present all the facts to the committee. »
Just because the ethics committee has launched a formal investigation into Gonzales doesn’t mean its report will ever see the light of day. Because the Ethics Committee only has jurisdiction over sitting members of Congress, the investigation would end if he abruptly resigns from office or loses his seat this year and the report has not yet been completed.
In Tuesday night’s Texas primary, Gonzales was forced into a May runoff election against Republican challenger Brandon Herrera.
