Council Delays Harassment Policy--Again

The Los Angeles City Council routinely votes on 100 items a week that affect 3.5 million residents. But six times during the past month--most recently Tuesday--the panel has punted on a proposal to police itself regarding sexual harassment and discrimination.

Intended to subject elected officials to the same rules that apply to the rest of the city’s 48,000 employees, the legislation would create a committee of council members that could launch independent investigations of alleged harassment, and would create a formal mechanism for the full council to censure one of its own.

That is, if it passes. Which is to say, if it’s ever voted on.

“Most of the time we address issues that affect the city as a whole, but not us--this is personal,” the measure’s sponsor, Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, said in an attempt to explain the repeated delays.

“Whenever you change the rules of the game on something that is so touchy--particularly when you change the rules of the game that affects the people who are voting on it--progress is slow.”

Longtime council observers recall that one of the longest debates in history was on a motion to limit the time of council debates.

Goldberg and Councilwoman Ruth Galanter first called for a new policy dealing with sexual harassment complaints against elected officials Nov. 28, the day after their colleague, Nate Holden, was exonerated in a sexual harassment lawsuit by a former receptionist.

They promised it would be ready by the end of January; it finally landed on a council agenda March 13.

Council members discussed it that day and again, for about an hour, on March 19. And again March 22. Holden says the measure “scares the hell” out of him because he thinks it could be used for political retribution.

“Why is it that every time we discuss sexual harassment,” Galanter wondered aloud during one meeting, “we have a whole lot of men in hysterics in this room?”

The council sent it back to committee for fine-tuning--watering it down and narrowing the committee’s focus from broad ethical issues to simply sexual harassment and discrimination--and debated it again March 29. Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr. was absent that day, so he asked that the council postpone the vote to April 2.

But the wheels of democracy move slowly, and when it comes to the sexual harassment policy, they downright creak.

When the time came to vote, only 10 members were still around the horseshoe. Galanter was absent and Goldberg was unsure that she had the eight votes needed to pass the measure.

Council members suggested that the measure needed all 15 council members to be present because of its importance, and so it was put off until Tuesday, one of the rare days on which everyone was scheduled to be in their seats.

“If this were a simple issue, I’d say, ‘Gee, they’re trying to kill it by delays,’ but I don’t think that’s happening,” Goldberg said April 2. “I think everybody who will be affected ought to have their say and ought to vote on this. They ought to be on record.”

Tuesday came and went without a decision and without testimony from several experts on sexual harassment--law school professors, defense attorneys, women’s rights experts--who took the time to show up but never got heard.

By 12:45 p.m., when the council considered the item, two members had left--Joel Wachs to a dental appointment and Richard Alatorre on a council-related emergency.

Holden reminded Goldberg of her promise that 15 members would be present. And so there was yet another vote not to vote yet.

Holden attributed the holdup to the politics of vote-counting. First, Goldberg tweaked the proposal in committee to make it more palatable to the conservatives, he said; later, she came up with the 15-members present idea to prevent a vote when her supporters were missing.

“I don’t think she had the votes, that’s why,” he said simply. “I’m ready to vote. I’ll fight it with a small house, even.”

This Friday, Goldberg promised, the buck finally will stop.

“It just seems to me that at the rate we’re going we’re never going to have everybody here, and I’m not willing to wait forever,” she told her colleagues. “Let’s do it on Friday, no matter what.”

Times staff writer Abigail Goldman contributed to this report.