The House on Wednesday voted to scuttle an effort by Republican Rep. Nancy Mace to shed more light on sexual misconduct allegations against members of Congress.
Mace, a conservative Republican who is running to be governor of South Carolina, forced a floor vote on her resolution directing the House Ethics Committee to make public all reports on allegations of congressional lawmakers and aides engaging in sexual misconduct or harassment.
But in a 357-65 vote, the House voted to refer the Mace resolution to committee — a move that effectively killed it.
The Ethics Committee had encouraged members to vote to refer the resolution. In a joint statement, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the committee argued it “could chill victim cooperation and witness participation in ongoing and future investigations” and would make it harder for the committee “to investigate and eliminate sexual misconduct in the House.”
“Here and elsewhere, perpetrators of sexual misconduct should never be shielded from responsibility for their misdeeds,” Chairman Michael Guest, R-Miss., and ranking member Mark DeSaulnier, D-Calif., said.
But, they added, “victims may be retraumatized by public disclosures of interim work product, excerpts of interview transcripts, and certain exhibits. And witnesses, who often only speak to the Committee confidentially or on condition of future anonymity, could fear retaliation if their cooperation is made public.”
Mace has spoken openly about her own experiences as a sexual assault survivor, and she’s been at the center of the fight over releasing the government’s Jeffrey Epstein files. She was one of just four House Republicans who teamed with Democrats on a discharge petition last fall that circumvented her own GOP leadership and eventually led to the Justice Department’s release of the Epstein files.
Hellbound and Down 