Sexual Harassment

Four current lawmakers, two former lawmakers and a dozen legislative employees are named in a trove of records the California Legislature released today showing substantiated cases of sexual harassment over the last decade. The records show that the Capitol’s human resources staff affirmed complaints against state Sens. Bob Hertzberg and Tony Mendoza, both Democrats from […]

For more than a decade the extravagant Back to Session Bash was a place to let loose. But with the Capitol reeling from accusations of sexual harassment and assault, the mood at the party this month was more subdued.

Patty Lopez “is the unusual candidate who can go back out there and say… ‘I am one of you. I got elected to office, the big machine came and took me out, then look what happened to the big machine,’” said Eric Bauman, chair of the California Democratic Party.

Will 2018 change California's power equation?

The electorate is a politician’s ultimate boss. But in recent weeks, as a wave of sexual harassment and assault allegations hits politicians in California's statehouse and the nation’s capitol, another force is proving to be as powerful as the electorate: peer pressure.

And as women come forward with stories of being propositioned, groped and even assaulted by male colleagues in politics, an undercurrent of retaliation has begun rippling through the state.

It’s an example of how the The Legislature’s exemption from the Whistleblower Protection Act has garnered attention in recent weeks, as a groundswell of women complaining of pervasive sexual harassment in the state Capitol publicly call for such protections for legislative employees. But the whistleblower act isn’t the only area of the law in which the Legislature has demonstrated a “do as I say, not as I do” mentality.