Esty, hand forced, makes right decision

Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty made the right decision Monday in saying she will not seek a fourth term. She was under pressure to face the public and answer tough questions about her handling of her former chief of staff who allegedly abused female staffers in the Washington office, as first reported by Hearst Connecticut Media.

Her apologetic statements and request for an ethics investigation to clear her of technical wrongdoing, as she did Monday, were not sufficient to meet her obligation to be up front with the voters who elected her three times.

Esty still needs to explain her handling of the scandal, as uncomfortable as that may be. Her answers should not change whether she is responding to a journalist, a constituent or a Congressional committee.

Instead the Democrat — who generally is accessible and gregarious — just raised more questions with her withdrawal from public appearances.

A central question was why it took her three months to fire chief of staff Tony Baker after accusations of abuse surfaced in 2016. Former staffer Anna Kain alleged that Baker harassed her with about 50 calls and texts in one night and threatened her with death. She obtained a protective order against him.

This was not the first time he was abusive, Kain said. She accused him of punching her in the back, in Esty’s D.C. office, in the winter of 2014 and threatening to prevent her from getting another job if she reported him. Kain left her position in Esty’s office in March 2015.

Esty said in a statement Thursday, after news of the scandal broke, that she was “horrified and angry” that Kain was harassed.

Also horrifying was that Esty’s internal review disclosed a “pattern of behavior that victimized many of the women” on her staff.

Esty should have fired Baker immediately. Instead, she sought advice from the Office of House Employment Counsel, gave Baker $5,000 severance and both signed a non-disclosure agreement. It appears the abuser received more protection than his accusers.

How could Esty with a clear conscience have provided a recommendation, albeit “limited,” of Baker for a job in the Ohio office of Sandy Hook Promise? It is shocking that she would recommend a man accused of violence to a Newtownbased organization dedicated to preventing the horrific violence that still traumatizes her own constituents.

Republicans and some Democrats in the state called for Esty’s resignation.

We did not.

We said the voters would decide whether she deserved to continue. Monday she spared them that decision and announced she will not seek reelection.

Her decision closes a career that was, at times, distinguished.

But it was also one that ultimately was extinguished by a number of appalling lapses in judgment.

Her apologetic statements and request for an ethics investigation to clear her of technical wrongdoing, as she did Monday, were not sufficient to meet her obligation to be up front with the voters who elected her three times.