U.S. House of Representatives

Despite his flaws, Hastings is best choice

He’s the grizzled veteran, the one who’s rounded the bases so many times he’s lost count.

She’s the untested rookie, full of high hopes and vague promises.

The contrast between U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings and Sheila CherfilusMcCormick, who runs a large home health care business in Miramar, could not be more stark.

At 81, Hastings is literally twice Cherfilus-McCormick’s age and, despite his roguish charm and lively step, gives off a been-theredone-that air.

Cherfilus-McCormick, an earnest idealist, laments what she describes as a broken system and wonders why we just can’t fix it. “I am running,” she reports, “because it is time for CHANGE! I am running to restore the faith of the American people.”

The two are opponents in the Democratic primary for the 20th Congressional District. The winner will face Jay Bonner in November. Bonner’s name won’t appear on the ballot because he’s a write-in candidate.

Hastings has faced the voters in the district 13 times. His supporters have stood beside him through a bribery and obstruction of justice trial, which resulted in his acquittal; and impeachment proceedings, which resulted in his removal from the federal bench.

His 14th test of voter confidence is taxed by a sexual harassment allegation, which, without his knowledge or consent, was settled for $220,000 in 2014, but only publicly revealed in December.

“I am still beside myself that they paid her a single penny,” Hastings said of Winsome Packer, a former staff member of the Commission on Security and Cooperation, which he once chaired.

In the age of #MeToo, comments that might once have been been greeted with a raised eyebrow today could result in a lawsuit, a settlement and a ruined career. Society struggles with where the line is drawn a day at a time.

Cherfilus-McCormick says she was disappointed by Hastings’ comments and the settlement made with public funds.

“In any other organization, there would have been some kind of consequence,” she told the congressman during their joint interview with the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board.

Hastings said one of the inappropriate comments he made was in mixed company, which included Packer, during a discussion of 16-hour workdays. “I made the comment, ‘I don’t understand how women can be on Capitol Hill and don’t go home and change clothing.” To be specific, he was speaking about their under-clothing.

He also made a comment to Packer about not being able to sleep after a long trip, “not even after sex.” He explained: “I perceived Winsome as a friend, in addition to an employee.”

“Another time, I said to her that you look nice. That led to all this brouhaha. She said I hugged her. I guess I’m guilty because I’m a hugger.”

Hastings alternately acknowledged the impropriety of his remarks, then defended them as no big deal. That he cannot sleep after sex, he said, “I’ve said that many times in front of men and women.”

How voters will weigh this chapter will be a matter of individual conscience in the voting booth. We find his behavior lamentable, and an embarrassment, but not so egregious that we deny him the endorsement we believe he has earned.

Wounded by the charge that he is dismissive of or demeaning to women, Hastings points to his 40-year record protecting and advancing women’s rights, something undeniably true.

After much discussion, the editorial board came to agree that Hastings’ infraction should not be a careerending blow. Making him pay at the ballot box would cost the district 25 years of seniority, which in the U.S. House of Representatives is the coin of the realm.

Lost, too, would be a representative who is intimate with the process, how it works and how it does not. Cherfilus-McCormick, intelligent and eager as she is, has much to learn. Her zeal for reform is admirable. Our hope is that she retains it and keeps working to right the wrongs she has identified.

Hastings still has much to contribute despite his advancing years. CherfilusMcCormick criticizes his relatively modest output of sponsored bills that don’t get passed, but fails to grasp the gap between bills filed and bills that make it through the legislative gauntlet.

Hastings’s seniority gives him opportunities to direct federal dollars to Florida’s needs and affords him bargaining power in the legislative trading that goes on in Washington. Hastings is pretty good at it. And he doesn’t see slowing down.

“Claude Pepper left Congress by death at 88,” he said. “Damned near everybody in the Senate is older than me. When you’re able to perform, you do what you do.

“I don’t go around bragging about things I’ve done, but go on I-95 and look at the median strips. Clay Shaw and I did that. The 17th Street Causeway? That’s Clay Shaw and Alcee Hastings. But one of my biggest successes, just to show how long it takes, when you land on a runway here, whether the Miami or West Palm Beach control towers are handling it, the state-ofart radar is TRACON. … It took seven years to get that done.

“You don’t get legislation passed because you’re passionate or have a feeling.”

Looking ahead, Hastings says Congress must address the sustainability of Medicare and Social Security, including the age of eligibility. He wants a health care plan befitting a nation as great as ours. And he wants Congress to address how the use of military force is authorized. “In the hands of any president, the power we have allowed to be placed in the executive branch is wrong and needs to be corrected.”

We wish both candidates well, whatever the outcome. Even outside Congress, valuable work can be done to improve the body. That is work that would serve Cherfilus-McCormick well if she makes another run.

Our hope is that Hastings prevails and that he has developed a better grasp of inappropriate language, at this or any age.

Hastings