ATLANTA, Ga. — As one of the Georgia Senate’s first orders of business Monday, senators passed rules making it less likely that lawmakers will investigate allegations of sexual harassment against their colleagues in the future.
In a resolution passed Monday, the first day of the 2019 legislative session, lawmakers voted to approve rules that require anyone who believes they’ve been harassed by a senator or Senate staffer to bring their allegations forward within two years of the incident. Previously there had been no time limit.
The time limit would apply to all complaints about the conduct of senators, not just sexual harassment cases.
The change would have ruled out last year's complaint against a former Senate leader, who was accused of sexually harassing a lobbyist in 2011. A panel of Senate leaders meeting in secret ended up dismissing the complaint, but the case hurt the political chances of then-state Sen. David Shafer, who lost the Republican primary runoff for lieutenant governor.
Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan told lawmakers Monday that the rule change does not prohibit someone from taking other routes to file a complaint against a senator.
“There are multiple avenues that a person can make a complaint,” said Dugan, R-Carrollton. “They can do it internally through the system … or they can go (externally) and take it to the court system.”
State Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, called it concerning that lawmakers voted to narrow the time for people to report harassment. All the chamber’s Democrats opposed the resolution.“This change is very troubling when we had a leader in the Senate who had charges brought against him just last year,” Orrock said.
The changes also increase the burden of proof for making an allegation public, lifting it from the charge having “reasonable grounds” to requiring “substantial credible evidence exists.”
Late last session, a veteran lobbyist filed a complaint against Shafer, who was considered the front-runner in the race for lieutenant governor.
The lobbyist said Shafer retaliated against her and harassed her after helping her get a bill passed in 2011, and the case was the talk of the final few days of the 2018 session.
The Senate’s ethics panel hired an Atlanta employment lawyer to investigate the allegations. The group’s deliberations were held in secret, and the case against Shafer was dismissed after the lawyer investigating the case “failed to find credible evidence of sexual harassment or a violation of the Senate Rules.”
Shafer urged the Senate committee to make the investigative report public, but the Georgia General Assembly long ago exempted itself from the Georgia Open Records Act, so the file remained secret. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, however, was able to obtain a copy of the complaint.
Shafer was the choice of many Republican senators, Capitol lobbyists, special interests and institutional donors to win the lieutenant governor’s race. He narrowly missed out winning the GOP primary outright, but then lost the Republican runoff to former Rep. Geoff Duncan after an “independent group” spent $3 million on mailings and ads that, among other things, raised the sexual harassment complaint as an issue.
Duncan went on to win the general election in November.
This story was originally published in The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.
Cox Media Group
