Congress women Jackie Speire can't fix the problem when she is part of the problem

A leading congress women in the fight to reform sexual harassment, Jackie Speier, was interviewed today on NPRs Market Place by Kai Ryssdal.

The first part of the interview went well, with Jackie Speirer appearing to be very tough and motivated to bring sexual harassment in Congress under control.

Here is her view as to why she thinks Congress has a problem with harassment; she believes it's because the members view them selves as to special to follow the same rules the privet sector follows.

She also points out a contributing factor is that other Congressmen don't want to confront their colleagues for political expedience.

Kai Ryssdal: You have been working on this issue for years. And now we are at a moment when things seem to be working really really quickly. You look, just this morning, Matt Lauer. It comes out, and he's out, and yet people look at Congress and it seems to be grinding so slowly. How come?

Jackie Speier: Because we have a problem. We think we're special here. And one of the points that I've been trying to make is that the institution is special. We are not. And the problem that most politicians have is that they want to be liked, so they don't want to go out on a limb and say that a colleague shouldn't be serving here. 

This is her explaining the current systematic issues with the way Congress deals with harassment allegations by victims. That the system is slow and designed to protect the harasser.

Rep. Speier: It's an embarrassment. It is an absolute embarrassment.

Ryssdal: It takes forever. It's onerous.

Rep. Speier: It is, in my opinion, a process to protect the harasser. We, as members of Congress, have enabled harassers to continue to operate with total impunity.

And this is how she contributes to the problem by acking just like most other politicians, who want to be liked, so don't go out on a limb and deal with the problem head on. Instead she'd rather defeer the currently accused (whom she believes are gilty) to the very system that has been put in place to protect the harasser and enable them to continue to operate.

Ryssdal: On the third hand, what do we do about Congressman Conyers and Sen. Franken?

Rep. Speier: I believe the women. And, if you believe the women, there's a pattern of sexual harassment. Now, they've both been referred to the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee has the authority to review, to investigate. They can certainly do that in short order. And they should then provide a decision.

The interview Ryssdal, though hesitantly, gives her a second chance to live up to the image she portrayed of her self at the top of the interview. But she unfortunately doubles down on her political expedience instead of going out on a limb to protect the people working in Congress from the harassers.

Ryssdal: Do you think they should step down?

Rep. Speier: I think that the Ethics Committee will make their recommendation. I think that the Congress will then have to decide whether they want to censor, reprimand, expel or fine.

If your so inclined the audio of this last part is so much more telling than just the words themselves. You can tell by the pauses and rambling that the Congress woman knows she was just caught out and she sounds uncomfortable with the questions. The host also sounds a bit awkward as if he didn't mean to put her on the spot, but once he did he couldn't just let it go or it would be bad jernalisum.

The artical and audio can be found here.

www.marketplace.org...

What are your opinions of this interview. Mine is that this issue will not be fixed in Congress any time soon. When the leading members in the fight against sexual harassment can't even stand up to the ideals they set forth what hope do they have in fixing the system?

PS. Sorry for any spelling mistakes on my part. I am dyslexic and dispite checking over this im sure there are still errors.

we don`t need her to tell us why, we know why, money, power and political favors most of us knew this before we turned 30 years old. it`s always sad when the elite think they discovered something new,that we all knew a long time ago, and try to convince us that they are geniuses for discovering it.
politicians are, and have always been, so out of touch with mainstream America,they are at least 50 years behind the times.

To show their SINCERITY with cleaning things up, Congress should open "the list" to public view.

That's the list which shows the assaulters and victims, where our taxpayer dollars have been used to settle Congressional assault claims over the years.

originally posted by: carewemust
To show their SINCERITY with

That's the list which shows the assaulters and victims, where our taxpayer dollars have been used to settle Congressional assault claims over the years.

I didn't quote it; but as this Congress woman was justifying why she wouldn't disclose the names of several congressman she knows of who have sexually harassed someone she said she couldn't reveal the names because she was afraid of showing that the victims violated their Nondisclosure agreements (by telling her of their story). She said she wants to look after them and revealing their stories by outing the Congress men could hurt the victims by causing them to loss their settlements.

If she where to push for what you suggest than she wouldn't have to worry about that.

All the political heroes of today, save for Trump (who has his own nasty dirt filled history) are fully aware of the behavior on Capital Hill. They all know about the tax funded slush fund to pay off sexual allegations with. All of them. Bernie Sanders, Hillary, Obama, Rand Paul. Any politician you may think worthy of public office knew of this immoral act, and did nothing about it.

Let that sink in. Then stop supporting anyone who has held office in the last 20 years.