House Ethics Panel Inquiry : Sex-Harassment Charges Surface Again for Bates

Nearly nine months after he survived a bitter reelection campaign dominated by charges of sexual harassment, Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego) learned Friday that he will face a House Ethics Committee investigation stemming from those allegations.

The ethics panel announced Friday that it plans to conduct preliminary investigations into charges of sexual misconduct by Bates and Reps. Gus Savage (D-Ill.) and Donald E. (Buzz) Lukens (R-Ohio).

The decision was made Thursday at a closed meeting of the panel, which declined further comment on the three investigations. The committee acted after reviewing charges that had been filed against the lawmakers, either by former aides or other members of the House.

Under House rules, a preliminary inquiry is the first step in investigating charges against a member of Congress. If the panel finds that there is a basis for the charges, it then can decide to open a formal investigation. Based on that inquiry, a lawmaker could face charges and disciplinary action by the House, including expulsion.

Charges by Former Aides

Bates, 48, was accused last year by two former aides of sexually harassing women on his staff and forcing them to perform campaign-related tasks on office time. The two former aides allege that Bates often embraced them or engaged in other objectionable activity, and said that he expected staffers in his Washington congressional office to solicit campaign contributions.

In a telephone interview, the four-term congressman denied the allegations of sexual impropriety and that he used congressional aides for political purposes.

“The complaint’s almost a year old, so I’m looking forward to finally getting it cleared up,” Bates said. “I don’t feel the allegations are accurate. It’s unfortunate that I’ve never been given a copy of the specific allegations.

“That forces you to kind of go into this thing blind. How can you make a specific response if you don’t know the specific complaint? I’d like to talk to whoever wrote these rules sometime.”

Bates said that he intends “to cooperate fully with the committee,” but that he is not sure whether he will respond in written or oral testimony. He added that he has been told that the preliminary investigation may be completed by early September.

“I’m not really surprised the committee’s going to look at it, given the climate in Washington these days,” he said. “I’m just eager to get it behind me.”

Bates, who last year admitted to “kidding around and flirting” with female staffers in ways that he conceded were “sometimes inappropriate and unprofessional,” reiterated Friday that he believes his conduct “never approached the level” of sexual harassment.

The examples of alleged sexual harassment detailed in news stories last fall include charges that Bates requested daily hugs from female staffers, during which he often patted their derrieres. On one occasion, he allegedly asked one aide whether she would sleep with him if they were stranded on a desert island, and he purportedly embarrassed another female employee when, in full view of his office staff, he wrapped his legs around her extended leg and began to sway back and forth, grinning.

“My feeling today is what it was when this first came out--that a lot of this was just joking around that got taken the wrong way or exaggerated,” Bates said Friday. “I’m sorry it happened. But to call it sexual harassment . . . is blowing it way out of proportion.”

Lukens, 58, was convicted in Ohio on misdemeanor charges of contributing to the unruliness of a minor. On June 30 he was sentenced to 180 days in jail and fined $1,000. Although Lukens is appealing his sentence, the House Republican caucus, consisting of all House Republicans, filed the complaint, based on charges that he had sex with a teen-age girl.

Through a press spokesman, Lukens on Friday denied any wrongdoing and said that he welcomes the opportunity to provide additional information about the girl’s credibility that had been ruled inadmissible during his trial.

In the Savage case, three House Democrats filed a complaint against the Illinois Democrat last month after news stories surfaced that a Peace Corps volunteer had said that Savage fondled her while he was traveling on congressional business in Zaire in March.

According to the complaint, the woman said she accompanied Savage and other individuals on a tour of area nightclubs after a dinner at the U.S. ambassador’s residence. As she sat in the back of a chauffeured car, the congressman fondled her repeatedly, despite her strong protests, the woman said.

Earlier this week, news accounts reported that Savage, during a 1986 congressional trip to China, had canceled a series of business meetings and traveled instead to South Korea and Hong Kong for sightseeing and to shop for tailored suits.

Savage, 63, was unavailable for comment Friday, but he has angrily denied the charges and told reporters two weeks ago, “I did nothing, that’s what I did. This lie was leaked by the State Department for political reasons.”

The allegations against Bates first surfaced in a small Washington newspaper in September, dramatically changing the complexion of what had been expected to be an easy reelection campaign against Republican lawyer Rob Butterfield Jr. in the heavily Democratic 44th District.

Having previously dismissed the race as unwinnable, local and national Republican groups began pouring money into Butterfield’s campaign in an effort to transform the election into a referendum on Bates’ integrity and honesty. Thrown on the defensive, Bates responded with a scrappy campaign in which he dismissed the charges as an “orchestrated Republican smear,” even as he apologized for his behavior and appealed for voters’ forgiveness.

“I tend to be a person who has a sort of sarcastic sense of humor, who sometimes says or does things just to be different or shocking without really meaning anything by it,” Bates said last October. “In public life, you can’t do that and shouldn’t do that. To the extent that I did, that was inappropriate.”

In the end, the district’s lopsided Democratic registration, a public backlash against Butterfield’s negative tactics and voters’ willingness to either disbelieve the charges or at least give Bates the benefit of the doubt enabled him to beat back the challenge rather handily, 60% to 36%.

Buoyed by that convincing margin, Bates said he expected the charges to “quietly blow away” after the election. Butterfield, though, offered a darker prediction, saying: “I think 1988 was the beginning of the end for Jim Bates.”

Dorena Bertussi), one of the two former Bates aides who filed a complaint against Bates with the Ethics Committee, said Friday that she is “happy this thing didn’t just disappear.” Describing Bates as “a source of embarrassment . . . for Congress and San Diego,” Bertussi also reiterated her contention that Bates’ behavior during the six months she worked on his staff went beyond casual flirting.

“I’m very relieved that they’re going to review this, even though that means more pressure for me,” said Bertussi, who now works for Rep. Richard Baker (R-La.). “But I knew what I was doing when I submitted the complaint. I did it because what Bates was doing had to be stopped. I hope that’s what comes out of this.”