Report: Many changes needed to prevent sexual harassment at Oregon Capitol

Update: A previous version of this story misstated the nonconfidential nature of a formal harassment complaint filing. The story has been corrected.

The Oregon Legislature needs to make a number of structural and cultural changes to ensure the Capitol building is a workplace free from harassment, according to a commissioned draft final report presented to legislative leaders Thursday.

Chief among the recommendations from the Oregon Law Commission's Oregon State Capitol Workplace Harassment work group is the creation and funding of an independent Equity Office that would conduct investigations into harassment complaints and administer outreach and training.

But, along with their specific suggestions, the work group offered this caveat: "The strongest policy imaginable will ultimately be ineffective unless and until there is a genuine and sustained effort to change the Capitol culture."

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Legislative leaders thanked the chair of the work group, P.K. Runkles-Pearson, for the team's work and pledged further deliberation during the upcoming legislative session.

“We need help. And you’ve helped us. You’ve helped the Legislature and you’ve helped Oregon," said Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem.

That commitment comes as Bureau of Labor and Industries investigators continue to look into whether legislative leaders did enough to protect legislators, staff and interns from former Republican Sen. Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, after allegations of sexual harassment became known.

Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian filed a complaint in August alleging they did not, and specifically named Courtney and House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, as failing to take preventative action.

Last week, legislative leaders complied with a judge's order and turned over to investigators some 20,000 pages of documents related to sexual harassment complaints at the statehouse. They had initially refused a subpoena for those records.

Courtney and Kotek asked the Oregon Law Commission in April to look into the Legislature's policies and create this report.

On Thursday, Runkles-Pearson made it clear that culture and policy changes needed to be pursued in concert.

"In addition to adopting and implementing robust policies and training, eradicating workplace harassment from the State Capitol will require a daily commitment from you and your colleagues," Runkles-Pearson wrote in a letter attached to the report.

Recommended policy changes

Runkles-Pearson, a partner with the law firm Miller Nash Graham & Dunn, said that many of the changes her work group is recommending could be done with internal rules, though others could be achieved through constitutional amendment or changing state law.

The report will be finalized next week. Runkles-Pearson said the work group was in consensus for all but one recommendation.

The most significant recommendation is the creation of the Equity Office, an independent entity within the Legislature. The office would have at least two staff members — one responsible for conducting investigations and writing investigative reports, the other responsible for outreach and training.

The work group proposed a handful of ideas to keep the office impartial both in appearance and actuality. It would report to a joint bipartisan committee, produce annual reports on its work and create a broad-based "Capitol Leadership Team."

"The Equity Office cannot be successful unless it is perceived as both effective and impartial," the work group wrote.

Other recommendations include:

• Strengthen the definition of "harassment" by prohibiting more than the law requires and applying it to conduct that also occurs outside of the building or in writing.
• Create a more robust reporting process that includes both confidential and nonconfidential avenues, while still having a nonconfidential formal complaint process.
• Make complaints of harassment be made under the penalty of perjury to avoid "political weaponization."
• Ask the Oregon Government Ethics Commission to track registered lobbyists for completion of harassment training.
• Institute "interim safety measures" after a harassment allegation has been filed, including temporary reassignment, no contact orders and unpaid leave.

The only recommendation that didn't have unanimity among the work group members had to do with expanding the statute of limitations for reporting a case of harassment. The Current rule only allows complaints filed within one year of the incident.

Everyone in the work group agreed one year was too short, but there was disagreement beyond that. One camp thought there shouldn't be any time constraints, while another wanted the timeline lengthened to four years.

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“Having this type of document, reading this information, is an education process for every legislator and its extremely important for us, anyway, as legislators, to take this very seriously and to own this document," said Sen. Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham.

In a likely preview of one area where rhetorical lines will be drawn next session, Rep. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, raised concerns about cultural differences leading to miscommunications that could be reported as harassment.

Rural and urban Oregonians have different values, he said, and expressing ones values shouldn't run the risk of being construed as harassment.

The work group included members from a variety of backgrounds, including former state representatives, judges, lawyers, business people, diversity advocates and doctors.

Contact the reporter at cradnovich@statesmanjournal.com or 503-399-6864, or follow him on Twitter at @CDRadnovich