Harassment Most Unbecoming : Packwood case shows Congress has a lot of work left to do

Although Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) has issued an apology following allegations from 10 women that they were victimized over a period of years by his sexual advances, the matter is unlikely to end there. Nor should it. The Senate Ethics Committee should look into these charges when Congress reconvenes in January.

Packwood, a leading advocate of women’s rights during his 25 years in the Senate, has refused to discuss the charges that were brought last week by former staff members and other women with whom he has worked. Instead, he issued a tepid apology: “(I)f I have conducted myself in any way that has caused any individual discomfort or embarrassment, for that I am sincerely sorry.”

Notwithstanding his quick apology, the Senate should investigate; the women who brought these charges deserve to be taken seriously and Packwood deserves to have his name cleared if the evidence warrants.

Packwood is not the first senator this year caught in controversy over sexual behavior. For that reason alone, the allegations against him should put all senators and representatives on notice that the standards of conduct becoming a member of Congress have forever changed. Sexual harassment is now as unacceptable when committed by a member of Congress as by a construction worker or military officer.

Following Anita Hill’s explosive charges of harassment against now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Congress set up a grievance office and procedures for filing sexual harassment complaints, but it declined to lift an exemption that excludes it from a law prohibiting sexual harassment. One of California’s new senators, Dianne Feinstein, has rightly called for an end to that exemption.

Feinstein and others are beginning to change the face of Congress. She and three other women will join the Senate in January, bringing the total to six, and there will be 48 women House members, 24 of them new. Feinstein has reportedly been offered a Senate Judiciary Committee seat. That would be a welcome signal of a new era of equality.