It’s Time to Wrap Up Packwood Matter : Only prompt open hearings, with proper safeguards, will meet the public interest

Sen, Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), fighting allegations that he made unwanted sexual advances to at least 17 women between 1969 and 1990, now says he wants those charges aired in an open hearing before the Ethics Committee, and the committee could decide as early as today whether to agree. The case against Packwood has unfolded, detail by squalid detail, over a period of nearly three years. It is now decision time in what is the legislative equivalent of a criminal trial. The committee should hold early and public hearings.

That possibility distresses many in the Senate, which last month on a 52-48 vote rejected a call by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) for public hearings in the Packwood matter. But that was before Packwood himself switched strategy and sought an open hearing. The Ethics Committee, fearing a spectacle that could embarrass the Senate and further lower public respect for Congress, can reject Packwood’s request. But hearing testimony behind closed doors would raise a greater risk. The alleged misbehavior of an elected official is very much the public’s business, and shielding that business from public scrutiny could only raise deep and justified suspicions.

Packwood’s aim now may be nothing more than to try to intimidate at least some of his accusers into refusing to testify before the television cameras. Whatever his motives, his right to confront his accusers in an open hearing seems beyond argument. That will not be easy for some of the women who have lodged complaints about his behavior, and it’s important that questioning be limited to matters that are germane only to the allegations they have made against Packwood. But a public hearing is clearly a matter of public interest, and the Ethics Committee should get on with it.