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Deal struck on sexual harassment legislation on Capitol Hill

Posted at 5:59 PM, Dec 12, 2018
and last updated 2018-12-12 18:01:18-05

House and Senate negotiators have struck a deal overlong-stalled legislationto revamp the way sexual harassment complaints are made and handled on Capitol Hill, multiple congressional sources close to the process told CNN on Wednesday, likely assuring the bill’s final passage this year.

The bill will reconcile the House- and Senate-passed versions into one bill that overhauls the Congressional Accountability Act, which set up and oversees how sexual harassment claims are handled and — for the first time — will hold lawmakers liable for paying harassment settlements from their own pockets, rather than using US taxpayer money as had been done in the past.

Senate negotiators will act first and will move this as a standalone bill, expected to pass by a unanimous consent agreement, as early as Wednesday night. That would send the bill to the House for its passage and then to the President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.

Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican who’s one of the chief negotiators of the sexual harassment bill, confirmed the deal is “done.”

“I think the final hurdle was getting through the election and getting everyone here for more than one day at the same time,” Blunt said. “Everybody will understand their personal liability and their personal responsibility and that will be a good thing.”

The breakthrough comes more than a year since the #metoo wave hit Capitol Hill and just in the nick of time. Had Congress been unable to reach agreement before the end of the year, each chamber’s legislation that passed earlier in the year would have expired.

The House passed its version in February. The Senate wrote its own bill, a vastly different version, in May and legislators have been working for the past seven months, in fits and starts, to compromise over the details.

Blunt called the deal “a good combination of the House and Senate bill.”

Congressional sources tell CNN the final bill, which has yet to be made public, holds individual members personally liable for harassment and retaliation settlements only. It does not apply to other forms of discrimination such as gender discrimination or pregnancy discrimination, which the House-passed bill had included. So members, if held personally liable for discrimination could still dip into US Treasury funds to settle.

Asked about this Wednesday by CNN, Blunt downplayed personal liability for discrimination being left out.

“It really was always about harassment and individual activity and discrimination is much broader,” Blunt said.

California Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier told CNN they will work to introduce a subsequent bill with all of the things they don’t get into this bill, like personal liability as it applies to discrimination, at the beginning of the next Congress.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who’s a negotiator for the bill, said the deal being reached after more than a year is “very rewarding.”

“No one is above the law,” Klobuchar said. “And that (is) whether it is for a crime or some kind of civil liability and I think that is a very important message to send.”

This has been updated with additional developments.