The House passed a resolution demanding full disclosure of taxpayer money spent settling sexual misconduct claims against members of Congress. The office responsible for those records has declined to say what it knows, and asked for 60 more days of silence.
H. Res. 1399, introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, cleared the House on June 30 by a vote of 420, 0. The resolution directs both the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights (OCWR) and the House Ethics Committee to release the total amount of taxpayer funds used in "all settlements, payments, reimbursements, awards, or other financial considerations paid in connection" to sexual misconduct investigations involving members of Congress. It also requires a list of the lawmakers involved.
Not a single member voted no. But the office that holds the receipts isn't talking yet.
When the Daily Caller News Foundation contacted the OCWR for comment, the office offered a single sentence of substance:
"We fully intend to comply with the provisions of H. Res. 1399 within 60 days of passage, as directed by the resolution. We will have no further comment until then."
That response raises the obvious question: if the OCWR has nothing beyond what has already been released, why not say so? And if it does hold undisclosed settlement data, names, dollar amounts, case details, why wait two months to share it with the public that footed the bill?
What we already know is damning enough. A letter from the OCWR's general counsel to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, reported by CNN, disclosed that the office approved 349 awards or settlements between January 1, 1996, and December 12, 2018, to resolve complaints against legislative branch offices. Eighty of those cases were settled by a House or Senate office. Released documents show taxpayers paid over half a million dollars in confidential congressional sexual harassment settlements stretching back decades.
Those numbers may only scratch the surface. Massie has indicated he believes the information released so far is incomplete, that the OCWR may hold data on settlements that have never been publicly disclosed.
For years, a dedicated U.S. Treasury account existed specifically to pay out these settlements on lawmakers' behalf. That account no longer exists as an option for members of Congress, a change that came after the 2018 Congressional Accountability Act Reform Act. The Ethics Committee championed that legislation, which required automatic referrals to the committee whenever a member reimbursed a sexual harassment award or settlement paid from the Treasury fund. It also mandated publication of those awards.
The Ethics Committee, in a separate statement, said it "is dedicated to providing transparency for the American public on sexual misconduct matters" but added a significant caveat: "the Committee does not handle sexual harassment lawsuits or have any involvement in settlements of such claims."
The committee went further, stating that since the 2018 reform act took effect, it "has not been notified of any awards or settlements relating to allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or other sexual misconduct by a Member." In April, the committee released a list of 28 publicly disclosed sexual misconduct investigations, but whether any of those cases involved taxpayer-funded payouts remains unclear.
The gap between the OCWR's 349 settlements and the Ethics Committee's 28 disclosed investigations is wide enough to drive a scandal through. The broken ethics system Congress built to protect its own has long relied on compartmentalization, one office handles the money, another handles the investigations, and neither is required to give the public a complete picture.
On the House floor before the vote, Massie made a direct appeal to his colleagues:
"I would urge my colleagues to vote for this in the interest of transparency and openness. We need to know what's been going on here in the House of Representatives in order to convince the people and ensure the people that we are conducting the people's business with the utmost integrity and treating the officers and the employees of this institution with the respect that they deserve."
The day after passage, Massie posted on X that "Americans have a right to know if their taxpayer dollars settled congressional sexual misconduct claims," calling the Treasury account a "slush fund." His office did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation's multiple requests for comment.
Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina voted "present" rather than yes, not because she opposed disclosure, she said, but because she felt the resolution was redundant. Mace told CNN she had already subpoenaed the OCWR files through the Oversight Committee in March and released them in May.
"I already did this. I subpoenaed the files in oversight in March and released them in May. It's already been done."
House Ethics Chairman Michael Guest, while acknowledging the information released so far was already public, said he would support Massie's resolution, Politico reported. The unanimous vote suggests the House recognized, at least publicly, that more disclosure is needed.
The resolution arrives against a backdrop of real consequences for lawmakers caught in misconduct scandals. Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, resigned from Congress amid sexual misconduct allegations. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a Texas Republican, also resigned after facing similar allegations.
Swalwell's case drew particular attention. His campaign called the allegations "outrageous" even as Democratic activists sounded alarms about the political fallout. FBI Director Kash Patel later called on Swalwell to sit for an interview following his resignation.
These cases became public. The question H. Res. 1399 forces is how many others didn't, and whether taxpayer money bought that silence.
The resolution gives the OCWR until late August to comply. If the office produces records showing settlements beyond what has already been disclosed, the public will finally learn which members of Congress used their constituents' tax dollars to make misconduct allegations go away. If the OCWR produces nothing new, it will need to explain why it couldn't say that in July.
Massie has built a track record on transparency fights. He co-led an effort with Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, to force the Department of Justice to release files surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. That bipartisan pairing, a libertarian-leaning Republican and a progressive Democrat, suggests the appetite for institutional accountability crosses ideological lines, at least when the political cost of secrecy outweighs the cost of disclosure.
The 420, 0 vote on H. Res. 1399 tells the same story. No member wanted to be recorded voting against transparency on sexual misconduct settlements. The question is whether the institutions tasked with compliance will match that unanimity with actual candor.
Congress has spent decades building a system that lets its members settle misconduct claims quietly, with other people's money, behind closed doors. The broader pattern of accountability gaps in Washington, from campaign finance to ethics enforcement, suggests the problem extends well beyond any single office or resolution.
The OCWR's 60-day clock is ticking. Taxpayers have waited long enough to find out who spent their money and what it was buying.
