Ethics panel organizes; will take complaints online
Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives ethics committee is now officially organized and open for business.
The eight-member bipartisan committee met on Thursday for the first time to adopt its rules and hold an hourlong private conversation.
At the private session’s conclusion, committee Chairwoman Donna Bullock, D-Philadelphia, announced that a complaint process will soon be available on the committee’s website for anyone who experiences sexual harassment or discrimination by a sitting House member or current House employee on House property or at a House sponsored meeting or event to file a complaint.
The adopted House rules for the 2023-24 legislative session also allow for anyone who has an ethics complaint for an action from as far back as five years ago to file a complaint against a current member or employee.
Prior to this legislative session, the House rules limited the ethics committee’s role to receiving harassment complaints from current House members or employees.
However, at a January hearing held by former House Speaker Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat, a labor union’s political director pointed out that rule’s limitations.
SEIU 32BJ’s Andi Perez shared her story of trying to file an ethics complaint with the House about a lawmaker, who she later named as the former Delaware County Democratic state Rep. Mike Zabel, of unwanted groping in 2019. Perez said she was told at that time the House’s rules only permitted employees and members to file complaints.
As a result of her accusation and at least two other individuals who stepped forward with similar accusations of sexual misconduct against Zabel, the state representative resigned from his 163rd legislative district seat effective Thursday morning, two hours before the ethics committee’s organization meeting.
That leaves the House with 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans with two vacancies, the 163rd District seat and 108th legislative district seat which became open last month when former Rep. Lynda
Schlegel Culver, R-Northumberland County, moved over to the state Senate.
Both seats will be filled in the May 16 primary. House Speaker Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, issued a writ calling for Zabel’s special election to occur on that date.
Bullock and state Rep. Kate Klunk, R-York County, the ranking Republican on the committee, were close-mouthed about what was discussed, which adheres to the current and past operating rules for the committee. However, both signaled a desire to work together going forward.