Female Pa. senators want to combat sexual harassment in Harrisburg, following scandal involving a top aide to Gov. Josh Shapiro

HARRISBURG — A bipartisan group of female state senators unveiled a package of legislation Tuesday aimed at combating sexual harassment in Pennsylvania’s capitol, following several high-profile allegations made against top officials this year, including a state representative and a top aide to the governor.

President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) announced Tuesday that she and Sen. Maria Collett (D., Montgomery) will soon introduce legislation to require outside investigations for sexual harassment complaints filed against someone working in a branch of state government. Another bill, sponsored by two other female Republican senators, would require the state to publicize all taxpayer-funded settlements reached for sexual harassment or misconduct claims.

The senators said the legislation is intended to increase accountability and transparency, and more anti-harassment legislation is expected to be announced Wednesday by a group of House Republican women. The proposals are significant for Pennsylvania, which has been slow to make reforms to address sexual harassment.

But the bills will not address some of the biggest priorities among victim advocates, such as limiting non-disclosure agreements, extending statutes of limitations, or expanding requirements for anti-harassment policies in private businesses. And some female Democratic senators have pushed for Ward, the Senate’s top lawmaker, to make stronger rules protecting people who are sexually harassed by lawmakers — as the state House did earlier this year.

Ward and Collett are drafting the legislation in reaction to a recent scandal in Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s administration, in which his office quietly settled a sexual harassment complaint against a top aide for $295,000.

A staffer in March accused Mike Vereb, Shapiro’s longtime ally and then-legislative affairs secretary, of sexually harassing her. She later quit due to perceived retaliation, according to a complaint filed in June. The governor’s office said they followed a “robust” internal investigation procedure, though Vereb remained in his position until late September, three weeks after the administration reached a settlement agreement with his accuser. The Inquirer reported on the accusations following his resignation, and the settlement details were released weeks later through the state’s open records law.

One of the bills, announced Tuesday by Sens. Tracy Pennyciuck (R., Berks) and Kristin Phillips-Hill (R., York), would require the release of settlements without the need for an open-records request while still protecting the privacy of the accuser and the details of the settlement.

The four senators haven’t yet formally introduced their bills, but announced their plans Tuesday and are seeking more cosponsors. Their announcement came as the National Women’s Defense League, which consulted on the proposed legislation, released a report on sexual harassment in state governments across the country.

“We can’t really stop all of the sexual harassment, but we can have the proper procedures in place to protect the victims and make sure that the correct remedies are enacted. And I think the latest event really screamed that,” Ward said. “You can’t have internally, in your department, evaluate a situation with their peers. It’s very, very difficult.”

Shapiro, who has often clashed with Ward, has defended his administration’s handling of the accusations against Vereb.

“You owe it to a victim to make sure that you have a confidential process, you have a rigorous process that’s grounded in integrity, to ensure that their voice can be heard and to ensure that appropriate outcomes are brought about,” Shapiro said at an Oct. 5 news conference. “And we are committed to doing that and do it in our administration.”

Manuel Bonder, Shapiro’s press secretary, said in a statement Tuesday that Shapiro supports efforts to require all branches of government to use independent processes, like the one the administration says it already follows.

“We will continue following a thorough, independent process — and we are encouraged that legislators, given the long history in the General Assembly, are taking action to finally include themselves in that accountability,” Bonder added.

Ward said it’s possible the Senate will hold hearings to examine the proposals more deeply.

“I’m hopeful that the governor’s administration will embrace these changes and say, ‘This gives us a roadmap,” Collett said. “This gives everyone, not just the governor, a roadmap for how someone who claims to have been mistreated, how their claims should be treated, and then on the other side of that, how they should be treated in the aftermath of those claims and allegations.”

The report released Tuesday by the National Women’s Defense League, a nonprofit seeking to bring awareness to sexual harassment in government, cited more than 359 incidents of at least 130 state elected officials publicly accused of sexual harassment since 2013. It does not include issues with non-elected officials, such as Vereb, and the report claims that these public accusations are likely just a fraction of all actual instances of sexual harassment.

Five former male lawmakers from Pennsylvania — three Democrats and two Republicans — were included in the report. The most recent instance occurred earlier this year, when a lobbyist accused former Rep. Mike Zabel (D., Delaware) of sexually harassing her. Zabel initially said he would not resign, but eventually decided to do so after a state representative came forward with her alleged experience of sexual harassment by Zabel.

Approximately 60% of lawmakers publicly accused attempted to stay in office, according to the National Women’s Defense League report.

Both Phillips-Hill and Ward said that while they had not personally experienced sexual harassment while working in state government, they want to add safeguards for young women.

“I’m currently 57, but I was once a young woman in the workforce,” Phillips-Hill said. “I think we all have stories. I am looking at those bright, talented young women who have so much to contribute to our state, our state government and to our commonwealth. This is not the type of environment that we want to perpetuate here in Pennsylvania.”

Collett was interviewed as part of a Senate investigation into former State Sen. Daylin Leach in 2019, after she and another senator accused him of demeaning behavior and bullying. But in part because elected officials are not considered employees under federal antidiscrimination law, their allegations could not form the basis for a sexual-harassment claim, investigators said.

“When I first entered the legislature, I’m not gonna lie, I was naïve,” Collett said. “There was no standard, there was no opportunity to hold that member accountable. There wasn’t even an opportunity, other than his benevolence, to say ‘Will you make a public apology for this thing?’ And that’s really devastating. It’s inappropriate, unfair, and unacceptable, frankly.”

Since the #MeToo movement six years ago that shook industries and state legislatures alike, 25 states and Washington, D.C. have approved more than 80 workplace harassment laws, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Pennsylvania is not one of them.

Collett said she will sponsor the bill with the top Republican senator because they could make meaningful change in the chamber.

“We cannot have an investigation that is colored by loyalty or a sense of responsibility toward one party or the other,” she said.

Ward’s introduction of the legislation and her criticism of Shapiro’s handling of the harassment complaint against Vereb marks the latest disagreement between her and the governor. Ward and Shapiro have been at odds for months, since a budget breakdown over private-school vouchers. The two still have not spoken, six months later.

The relationship between the two top leaders continued to sour after Vereb’s resignation. Ward called on Shapiro to release the details of a settlement immediately.

When asked about her reaction, Shapiro told reporters to “consider the source” when talking about sexual harassment, alluding to the state Senate’s failure to pass a statute of limitations window for childhood sexual abuse victims to sue their abusers and the institutions that protected them.

Some politicos found Shapiro’s comments to be dismissive of women’s concerns, while many Democrats came to Shapiro’s defense and urged their Republican colleagues to take action for childhood sexual abuse victims if this topic is really a top priority for them.

Ward’s office also had mugs made with the “consider the source” tagline.