Protections sought for whistle-blowers on lawmakers’ staffs
SACRAMENTO — Over the years, California lawmakers have passed and strengthened whistle-blower protections to encourage private and public employees to report wrongdoing at their workplaces without fear of retaliation. But they have deliberately left one group of workers unprotected: their own.
Critics say the Legislature’s reluctance to extend whistleblower protections in the male-dominated statehouse has contributed to a pervasive culture of sexual harassment and abuse described by women in and around the Capitol last month.
“Welcome to the rules of irony,” said Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore (Riverside County). “The attitude is the rules are for you and not me.”
Melendez was one of 300
women who work in state politics and who signed an open letter during the past two weeks saying they’d had enough of sexual harassment and sexual assault by lawmakers, lobbyists and legislative staffers at the Capitol.
She has introduced legislation each year for the past four years to extend the California Whistleblower Protection Act to legislative staffers. Each time, the bills have died in the hands of the same state Senate committee.
Without whistle-blower protections, Melendez said, legislative staffers risk their careers in order to report wrongdoing.
Legislative employees can file harassment and retaliation complaints with the state Fair Employment and Housing Department, but it has done little to protect staffers, said Mary Alice Coleman, a Davisbased attorney who has represented cases against the Legislature.
“I have seen horrendous retaliation,” said Coleman. She said Melendez’s bill would make a difference.
“People have to feel safe making complaints,” she added. “You can have all the protections in the world, but if people are afraid to use them then it’s meaningless.”
Both the state Senate and Assembly have policies barring sexual harassment and retaliation against workers reporting such behavior, but women who spoke with The Chronicle said they do not have confidence in that system. That’s because their complaints must be made to a committee headed by lawmakers, which they say has a reputation for protecting the institution above the victim.
“I’ve been doing sexual harassment cases for 17 years, and not in any other industry have I seen such a circular and convoluted process,” said Micha Star Liberty, an Oaklandbased attorney specializing in sexual abuse and harassment cases. “What hasn’t been created is a confidential reporting process that would allow for an independent investigation into allegations of any sort.”
Furthermore, staffers who work in lawmakers’ Capitol and district offices are at-will employees, meaning they can be fired at any time for any reason.
The whistle-blower bills Melendez introduced in each of the past four years all unanimously passed the Assembly. When they got to the state Senate, they stalled without a vote — or explanation — in the Appropriations Committee.
The Appropriations Committee is where bills are sent that cost money — in this case the added “cost pressures” from investigations if more people report bad behavior, according to the bill analysis. Most bills sent to the Appropriations Committee are placed on what’s called the suspense file, where the fate of the measures is decided behind closed doors — this year primarily by committee chair Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County), and Senate President Kevin de León, DLos Angeles.
The committee itself — which includes Bay Area members Sens. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, and Jim Beall, D-San Jose — votes to send bills to the suspense file, but does not vote on whether the bills will move forward or are killed. Wiener, Beall and Hill each said Tuesday that they support whistleblower protections for legislative employees and would vote in favor of Melendez’s bill if given the chance.
They say they didn’t get that chance, however.
Lara has declined multiple requests for comment on why the bill has died three times in the committee he chairs. De León, who chaired the Appropriations Committee in 2014 when the bill first died without a public vote, was unavailable for comment, his office said.
“We have never been given a reason why,” Melendez said.
This year, the committee’s analysis of Melendez’s bill raised questions about how whistle-blower protections could work in the Legislature, where employees can be fired for any reason.
Come January, when the Legislature reconvenes, Melendez said she will try again.
“I will bring this bill every year until it passes,” Melendez said.
For years, women in state politics said they — like actresses in Hollywood — warned each other privately about the men they should avoid being alone with. They shed that shroud of secrecy following the recent movement among women in Hollywood to identify men they accused of sexual assault and harassment, most prominently film industry mogul Harvey Weinstein.
For the most part, the Sacramento women have declined to name the men whom they are accusing, saying they want to change the culture that has made it acceptable versus calling out just one or two repeat offenders.
The onslaught of accusations prompted reactions from state Senate and Assembly leaders last week. De León announced that he hired two outside firms to investigate allegations in the Senate and review current policies on how the house handles complaints.
Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood (Los Angeles County), announced that the Assembly would hold public hearings this month to ensure that the body is addressing a culture that has allowed sexual harassment to fester.
But Adama Iwu, a government relations executive for Visa who drafted the letter signed by hundreds of women in the Capitol community, said what many women have said they want is a confidential hotline to report harassment and abuse, an outside investigator who can do an independent public review, and whistle-blower protections for those who do come forward.
“I understand that this is the Legislature trying to do something quickly,” Iwu said. “What we need is a collaborative process that is victimcentered with protections moving forward.”
The California Whistleblower Protection Act encourages employees to speak up when they see wrongdoing and offers job protections when they do. Over the years, lawmakers have expanded the protections to include more workers and made efforts to ensure that workers know their rights, including by passing a law in 2004 that says employers must prominently display notices about whistle-blower protections using lettering larger than 14 point type.
In 2010, lawmakers passed a bill to give court employees whistle-blower protections. A year before, the Legislature extended the protections to governor and legislative appointed positions, as long as the individual is not a lawmaker or legislative employee.
“Legislative staffers are probably in the best position to know what is going on in their bosses’ lives,” Melendez said. “Our staff, they know where we are and who we are with, what we are discussing, they have access to our calendars. They are in the best position to know if something is going on that should not be. Those are the people who can’t speak up.”
Pamela Lopez, a partner at a Sacramento lobbying firm, said while it seems like many women have stepped forward to report abusive behavior in the Capitol, without job protections many others remain silenced. Lopez, who signed the letter, has detailed her own disturbing allegation, saying a lawmaker forced himself into a bathroom with her last year and masturbated in front of her.
“For every woman that has come forward, there are many more who don’t feel safe,” Lopez said. “I’m lucky I’m in a position of partnership and ownership at a firm. There are other women who have faced harassment and assault by legislators who don’t feel safe to come forward because they fear formal or informal punishment. Some women are in trouble with their bosses for signing onto the letter.”