Lawmaker gets a pass, says former colleague
SACRAMENTO — Former Assemblywoman Linda Halderman is closely following the sexual harassment scandal as it unfolds at the state Capitol, taking down one elected official after another.
She’s particularly interested, she said, because she filed a complaint against a sitting senator, who, unlike other accused lawmakers, has not been pressured to resign or step aside during the sexual misconduct investigation.
Halderman wants to know why Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a Democrat from Van Nuys, has been able to continue his day-to-day work as a lawmaker during the investigation when another senator, Tony Mendoza, was barred from showing up in the building as allegations against him were investigated.
On Thursday, Hertzberg was in the Senate chambers with his colleagues preparing to vote on whether to expel Mendoza after investigation findings that Mendoza “more likely than not” engaged in unwanted sexual advances toward six women, including interns in his office. Ultimately Mendoza, a Democrat from Artesia (Los Angeles County), resigned, lashing out at the Senate, which he is suing for discrimination, and arguing that he was treated differently than Hertzberg.
On that point, Halderman agrees.
“What’s the difference between him and Tony Mendoza?” Halderman said in a phone interview with The Chronicle. “What about him makes him immune?”
In 2011, Halderman was a newly elected Republican assemblywoman from Fresno and Hertzberg was a former Assembly speaker with a long legislative career working as a consultant for the Assembly. Halderman said Hertzberg was making her uncomfortable with his incessant bear hugs. One day as he approached her in a Capitol hallway, she said, she told him not to touch her. She said he then pinned her arms at her side and thrust his groin into her.
In a recently published first-person account in the Fresno Bee, Halderman said an Assembly administrative officer dismissed her complaint as “That’s just how Bob is.”
Indeed, Hertzberg is
“Women shouldn’t be subjected to this regardless of the positions they hold.”
Linda Halderman, former assemblywoman
well known at the state Capitol for giving bear hugs, including to people he just meets. But Halderman said her case was never about hugs.
“He pinned my arms and thrust his groin into me,” she said, her voice agitated. “You can’t call that hugging. That’s assault.”
In response to the allegations, Hertzberg apologized in a statement for unintentionally making anyone uncomfortable with his hugs.
The Senate investigation into her allegations against Hertzberg was completed last week, but the results have not been released, and it remains unclear whether they will be. In the Mendoza case, the results were publicly released four days after the Senate announced the investigation had finished.
Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, DLos Angeles, said the reason for the difference in how both cases have been handled is that the allegations against Mendoza came from subordinates while the allegations against Hertzberg came from fellow lawmakers.
That’s a valid argument, said Sue Bendavid, an employment attorney in the San Fernando Valley who offers sexual harassment trainings to employers. But, Bendavid added, employers also have to be wary of whether or not the accused employee can sway coworkers who are witnesses in an investigation by remaining on the job.
“Every employer and every company is different,” she said. “Every time we deal with it we look at it differently. If it’s two co-workers who are harassing each other versus a supervisor and a subordinate. Every circumstance is different. The goal, though, when considering what to do is to make sure it’s prompt, thorough and objective.”
Halderman, a surgeon, said being a fellow lawmaker with Hertzberg at the time of her allegation should not matter.
“Somehow I’m less deserving of protection because I managed to get into an elected office for two years?” she said. “That’s insane. Women shouldn’t be subjected to this regardless of the positions they hold.”
Hertzberg said in a statement last week that he was not asked to take a leave, nor did he consider taking one.
“I believe that the severity of each allegation, and subsequent course of action, should be considered individually,” he said in a statement to The Chronicle.
As in Mendoza’s case, allegations against Hertzberg date back years.
Documents released this month detailing substantiated allegations in the Capitol revealed that Hertzberg was warned in 2015 that he was making staff uncomfortable and that the “behavior should not be repeated.” A legislative staffer said in the 2015 complaint that she walked into Hertzberg’s office and he pulled her close to him and began dancing and singing to her.
Hertzberg said the incident involved a family member of someone he knew and apologized to her “and anyone else who may have ever felt my hugs unwelcome.” Hertzberg, who is a lawyer, was elected to the Senate in 2014 after having served in the Assembly, including as speaker from 2000 to 2002.
In December, an anonymous female lawmaker told the Sacramento Bee that she had repeatedly told Hertzberg in 2015 that she was not comfortable with his overly touchy hugs. The lawmaker tried to avoid him and his long embraces, but he continued to hug her, she told the Bee, until she yelled at him. Another unnamed lawmaker told the Bee that she too had warned Hertzberg in 2014 that she was not comfortable with his hugging. It’s unclear whether those lawmakers were interviewed by outside investigators.
The investigations into Hertzberg and Mendoza are among 14 otherwise confidential cases that the Legislature was probing in the wake of the #MeToo movement, which began shaking up the Capitol in November. Another is the case of Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County).
Garcia took a voluntary unpaid leave as the Assembly investigates allegations of groping and sexual harassment. She denies the allegations.
So far, three lawmakers have resigned amid the scandals: Mendoza, Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-San Fernando Valley, and Assemblyman Matt Dababneh, D-Encino (Los Angeles County). All three have denied wrongdoing.
The cases that have become public show there are no clear guidelines on whether a lawmaker should step aside during an investigation. There is no clear barometer for what warrants expulsion, suspension or a warning when accusations are substantiated.
“We have to answer that,” said Samantha Corbin, a lobbyist and co-founder of the group We Said Enough, which formed in the wake of the #MeToo movement in Sacramento. “Otherwise, we have a process open to politicization and operates more like a popularity contest than due process.”