Republican U.S. Senate candidate Matt Corey is ramping up his criticism of rival Chris Murphy, alleging the Democratic senator has refused to push for disclosure of secret settlements paid to settle sexual harassment and abuse case on Capitol Hill.
“It has been a week since I demanded that Chris Murphy address this shocking and unacceptable situation,” Corey said in a press release. “And yet, instead of calling for the full and complete disclosure of all U.S. Senators and Congressmen who are involved in this shocking scandal, he is silent – and his silence means he is supportive of and complicit with the cover-up.”
Murphy was unavailable for comment. But Murphy’s staff points out he spoke out on the issue during a recent interview with The Day of New London’s editorial board. In that interview, Murphy called for change in the way such complaints are handled and and expressed support for legislation that would overhaul the way Congress treats victims of sexual harassment.
The candidates are sparring over the disclosure, by Buzzfeed and other media, that Congress has paid at least $15 million to resolve complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination based on race and violations of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
Corey said Murphy and other members of Congress have “turned a blind eye to the pervasive, years-long culture of sexual harassment and abuse that permeates Capitol Hill.”
But in his interview with The Day’s editorial board, conducted before Corey’s most recent press release, Murphy expressed concerns about the secret payouts. “I think we’ve got some work to do to clean up our house in Congress,’’ he said. “We’ve learned that there has been a fund that has been occasionally used to settle claims against members that were not made public and I think we have to take a real hard look at that. You want to protect the identity of accusers but I don’t necessarily know that you should be protecting the identity of those who have settled those claims if they are members of Congress. So, you know, this is all very, very serious and I think it begs Congress to take a look at our own rules to make sure that these complaints are coming forward, to make sure that they are dealt with in a meaningful way, and to make sure that, you know, our laws are not protecting individual members like maybe has been the case at least in the House of Representatives with that particular fund.”
Murphy has signed on as a co-sponsor of the Member and Employee Training and Oversight On Congress Act, known as the MeToo act. It would mandate sexual harassment awareness training for members and overhaul the complaint process for staffers, among other changes.
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