Congressional Slush Fund To Pay Off Victims of Congress's Sex Offenders

Protecting Congressional Sex offenders at the rate of 13 cases per year.

Secrecy surrounds sexual harassment settlements in Congress

Washington State governments’ practice of spending taxpayer funds to settle sexual harassment lawsuits against legislators and staff has created an uproar in California’s Legislature and other statehouses around the country. Now a picture is emerging of how the U.S. Congress is doing the same thing, with less fanfare and even less transparency.

Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of Hillsborough said Wednesday that over the last 20 years, Congress has settled 260 complaints of workplace discrimination “at a cost to taxpayers of this country of $15 million,” reiterating a figure she quoted on NBC Tuesday. But it’s unclear how many of those complaints were related to sexual harassment, versus racial or other forms of discrimination, because Congress doesn’t release that information, nor is it subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.