#MeToo advocates hold fire in Hill case
The House Ethics Committee is investigating Southern California Rep. Katie Hill over allegations that she engaged in a sexual relationship with a member of her congressional staff — and #MeToo advocates who helped push through reforms in response to highprofile incidents of harassment say it’s time to let the new processes play out.
It’s largely conservatives who are calling for action now against Hill, a Democrat from
Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County) who ousted a Republican congressman in 2018. Advocates of sex harassment victims are emphasizing the need for investigation and avoiding focusing on the salacious details of the case, including nude photographs of Hill with a campaign aide that found their way to media sites.
“I’m an advocate for a process. And the process isn’t done in the media,” said Amy Oppenheimer, an attorney who was hired by the Legislature to investigate harassment complaints in Sacramento during the #MeToo scandals.
“She admitted some behav
ior, she denied other behavior. People deserve a fair and private process when they are accused of things that would violate rules or ethics or laws,” Oppenheimer said. “And it needs to be done by somebody who doesn’t have a dog in the fight.”
The investigation was triggered after the conservative website Red State reported that Hill had engaged in a threeway relationship with a woman who worked on her 2018 campaign and Hill’s husband, Kenneth Heslep. Heslep filed for divorce from Hill in July.
The outlet also said Hill had a relationship with a member of her congressional staff. Among the #MeToo reforms that passed Congress was a law prohibiting members from having sexual relationships with their staffers.
Hill denied the affair with one of her House aides but admitted the relationship with a campaign worker. She wrote in a letter to her constituents in Los Angeles and Ventura counties that “during the final tumultuous years of my abusive marriage, I became involved in a relationship with someone on my campaign.
“I know that even a consensual relationship with a subordinate is inappropriate, but I still allowed it to happen despite my better judgment,” Hill wrote.
She also said photos including one that showed her naked, brushing the campaign worker’s hair, had been posted without her consent. She said she has asked the Capitol Police to investigate “potential legal violations of those who posted and distributed the photo.”
Several states, including California, have outlawed “revenge porn,” the posting of nude or sexually explicit photos of people without their consent.
Congressional rules that bar relationships with office staffers say nothing about campaign workers. Nevertheless, Ally Coll, a cofounder of the antisexual harassment organization the Purple Campaign, told the online outlet Vox that there are “inherent power dynamics involved with superiors and their subordinates, which makes the issue of consent difficult.”
Rusty Hicks, chairman of the California Democratic Party and someone whom Hill campaigned for during his run for the top party job, declined to comment about the Hill case.
Oppenheimer said, “I just wish we had a better vocabulary for when we talk about this. We use one word for harassment. It could mean my boss calling me ‘honey.’ Or it could be my boss sexually assaulting me. Those are two entirely different situations. We have to start distinguishing between them.”
Leaders of the We Said Enough campaign, which helped to bring reforms on sexual harassment to both Sacramento and Washington, emphasized the need for the process to run its course in the Hill investigation.
“We Said Enough, and the brave staffers behind MeToo Congress, fought for systemic changes, trainings, codes of conduct, independent reviews, and counseling resources — all of which the MeToo Congress bill established,” Samantha Corbin, a leader of the organization, wrote in an email. “We understand that an independent investigation is under way and hope that the privacy and due process rights of all are respected.”