Group Calls for Outside Counsel to Investigate Sen. Packwood

The Senate Ethics Committee should hire an outside counsel to investigate sexual harassment accusations against Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), Common Cause said Thursday.

“Very serious questions have been raised about the committee’s performance in upholding and enforcing Senate ethics rules and standards,” the group’s president, Fred Wertheimer, wrote to the committee. Common Cause is a private, nonpartisan group that monitors Congress.

Ethics Committee Chairman Terry Sanford (D-N.C.) had no immediate comment on the request for an outside counsel, spokesman Bill Adams said.

The six-member panel has hired an outside lawyer in major cases, including investigations of Sen. Dave Durenberger (R-Minn.), and five senators who received political donations from former savings and loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. and his associates.

The committee announced Tuesday that it has begun a preliminary inquiry against Packwood. The staff will conduct interviews and gather information for the members, who will decide whether a formal investigation is needed.

At least 15 women--Senate employees, lobbyists, campaign workers and others--have told reporters and women’s organizations that Packwood made uninvited advances that sometimes included unwanted physical contact.

The allegations date to the 1960s. Packwood checked into an alcohol treatment facility this week. Without admitting improper behavior, he apologized for any embarrassment he caused.

“The Senate Ethics Committee finds itself today at a critical juncture,” Wertheimer wrote to Sanford. “We believe there must be a basic change in the way the Senate oversees and enforces its ethics rules.”

Feminist Gloria Steinem on Thursday called Packwood “a courageous champion” for women and said he shouldn’t be judged hastily.

“As I have personally witnessed over the past 20 years of working with Sen. Packwood, he has been a courageous champion for legislation that the female half of this country desperately needs,” Steinem said. “We all deserve to have our lives judged in context,” the author and founder of Ms. magazine said in a printed statement issued in New York.