Lawmakers be warned: The ‘Epstein Amendment’ is coming for you

Men behaving badly has been a theme in Washington lately.

Between California’s U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell resigning in disgrace this week and the White House covering up reams of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein’s human trafficking crimes, a common refrain emerges that these and other cases of abuse were “open secrets” among the powerful people around them.

But state Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, should get full credit for a remarkable piece of legislation now sitting on Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature that would keep no secrets— and hold any lawmaker at the Georgia Capitol accountable for bad behavior toward staff in their offices. It applies to men and women, Democrats and Republicans.

Robertson’s “Epstein amendment,” as it was dubbed, would expose the details of abuse and harassment under the Gold Dome to new public scrutiny. The legislation was the subject of rumor and speculation all session. Which politicians was he targeting? Who in power wanted it to happen? And could it really pass?

We got one answer earlier this month when the measure passed the House and Senate in the final hours of the final day of the two-year legislative session.

Robertson, a father of two daughters and a former sheriff, said he decided to draft his measure after working on a separate bill cracking down on clergy having inappropriate contact with parishioners.

“If it was good enough for me to pass a piece of legislation that would hold spiritual leaders in check, then why wouldn’t there be something to hold those who do our job, the men and women in the General Assembly, in check?” Robertson said. “None of us are above reproach.”

Within two hours of introducing his bill, Robertson said his phone started to ring. “What’s this bill about?” people wanted to know. “How would it work?” Speculation and rumor fired up about which members could be exposed.

The senator says he has never heard of specific harassment settlements during his eight years in office, but we’ll all know soon enough. That’s because the bill will require public disclosure of any settlement of claims of sexual harassment, racial discrimination, retaliation or other unlawful employment conduct by a member of the state House or Senate if public funds were used for the settlement.

It will apply retroactively to settlements made since 2019, but won’t apply to private civil cases. The names of victims and witnesses will be shielded from disclosure, and crucially, the measure will become law as soon as Kemp signs it, if he signs it, well before the July 1 enactment date that is customary.

With just a three-day window to produce documents, that means that harassment settlements could be made public before Georgia’s May 19 primary, when every seat in the state House and Senate is on the ballot.

The Epstein Amendment moved through the General Assembly this year in fits and starts, which made some wonder whether it would suffer the same fate as a similar bill in Congress requiring disclosure of harassment settlements. That bill was buried in a House committee last month after news broke that a former staffer to U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, had committed suicide and texts later showed Gonzales bombarding her with inappropriate texts and intimate messages.

The developments in Washington did not go unnoticed in Georgia.

“The U.S. Congress had an opportunity to open itself up and provide sunshine and disclosure for claims that they may have had against members related to sexual harassment and other things, in the light of the issues we heard about Jeffrey Epstein,” state Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said just before Robertson’s measure came up for a vote. “The U.S. Congress voted to not do that. I think our body is better.”

State Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, D-Decatur, said she’s no employment lawyer, but the Robertson measure is a net positive in her eyes. “Especially when there are taxpayer dollars, I think there’s a strong case to be made for transparency and accountability,” she said.

The other case to be made — and I’m saying this as a former Capitol Hill staffer — is the incredible power disparity at play between elected leaders and the young men and women who work in their offices.

Although the culture is slowly changing, the combination of long hours, members away from their families for long stretches at a time and very little oversight is a recipe for abuse in legislative offices. Legalized secrecy only makes it worse.