Senate could vote this week on deal to address sexual harassment | McClatchy Washington Bureau

The Senate is expected to break a lengthy impasse that's blocked efforts to dramatically revamp its rules on sexual harassment.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, said he and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, plan to propose legislation Tuesday to update a 1995 law governing how members of Congress and their staffs report harassment on Capitol Hill.

In addition to changing the liability members face, the plan could eliminate the lengthy counseling, arbitration and "cooling off" periods in the existing law.

The Senate deal finally would pave the way for Congress to respond comprehensively to a string of harassment accusations against its own members, which have shined a light on what critics say is an unwieldy, outdated system for reporting harassment allegations.

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation in early February to update the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act, which dictates how member’s offices handle harassment allegations. The Senate, however, has been far slower to act. Some leading Republicans in the chamber even questioned whether legislation was necessary.

The main point of contention in the Senate has been the requirement in the House bill that lawmakers pay for any settlements related not only to allegations of sexual harassment, but also any discrimination based on race, gender, religion or disability in the workplace.

Currently, lawmakers can tap public funds — either through a Treasury fund or their own personal member account — to pay for these types of settlements or other damages. Revelations of those type of taxpayer-funded paymentsforced the resignation of veteran Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, and conservative Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, late last year.

Blunt has been leading negotiations in the Senate as chairman of the Rules Committee, along with Klobuchar, the panel's top Democrat. Missouri's Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill also is involved in talks. She's the top Democrat on the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which also has jurisdiction.

Blunt said Democrats and Republicans who worked on the bill felt the changes needed to be made in the form of a bill, not just rules.

"The House did legislation," he said. "And for the House legislation to come to some conclusion, there needs to be some Senate legislation, so we'll send a bill back over to them and hopefully they'll accept it."

He said he and Klobuchar needed to compare notes after presenting the bill to each of their caucuses, but he was optimistic the Senate could vote soon.

“It would be great if we could get this done before the Memorial Day break,” Blunt said.

Currently the congressional process “is there to protect the institution, not the victim,” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-California, told McClatchy last fall.

She and a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in the House and Senate seized on the rise of the #MeToo movement — and the revelations it produced about sexual misconduct in Congress — to push for a comprehensive overhaul of that system.

Speier told McClatchy in March that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell wanted to “weaken” the provision of the House bill that makes members personally liable for not only harassment but other forms of workplace misconduct, as well.

A spokesman for McConnell denied that he was against barring lawmakers from using taxpayer funds for sexual harassment payouts.

“Sen. McConnell supports members being personally, financially liable for sexual misconduct in which they have engaged,” Don Stewart said at the time. He did not, however, comment on payouts for other types of discrimination — including on the basis of age, race, religion or disability — that are also covered by the House legislation.

The disagreement kept the legislation from being included in the omnibus spending bill that Congress passed in March, despite a push from leading Senate backers like Klobuchar and New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. Senate leaders on both sides of the aisle promised, however, that they would continue to work on brokering a deal.

Blunt said Tuesday that the Senate bill he's pushing with Klobuchar would make members personally liable for other workplace violations, beyond harassment.