House Ethics Committee To Take Up Kelsey Complaint Wednesday
Posted on January 26, 2009 at 8:25 amChairman Ulysses Jones announced the intent of the committee to take up Rep. Brian Kelsey’s ethics complaint against new house speaker Kent Williams in a memorandum to Ethics committee members dated Friday. The meeting will take place Wednesday, January 28, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. in 16LP.
The complaint will force the committee to directly confront the now nearly two year-old allegation of sexual harassment against then Rep. Kent Williams made by Rep. Susan Lynn.
At issue will be not only the sexual harassment allegation but Williams’ denial that the sexual harassment took place. In the complaint, Kelsey argues that this action was just as bad as the original alleged incident.
“Speaker Williams’s actions of sexual harassment were bad enough to begin with. Denying that the events ever occurred, in effect calling Rep. Lynn a liar, is like spitting in the face of his victim,” stated Kelsey in a press release.
Speaker Williams since the issue made news last week has issued a general denial that he has ever sexually harassed anyone and has cited house rules demanding confidentiality in matters of sexual harassment in refusing to address the specific allegations made by Lynn.
Lynn to date has not filed a formal complaint against Williams in connection to the incident. Lynn has said that her decision to go to her leadership to handle the issue instead of swearing out a complaint was an attempt to avoid the very publicity the incident now enjoys.
The ethics committee will have wide discretion on how to act on the matter. While not specifically binding on the 106th General Assembly, the ethics code passed during the 104th General Assembly, would likely be looked upon as precedent.
Under those rules, if the committee agrees with Kelsey that there has been a violation of the Ethics Code or a statute governing the conduct of a member, the committee can set a hearing where both sides can make arguments and call witnesses.
The code also offers the committee the option of recommending disciplinary action to the full house or turning over its findings to the District Attorney.
Comments
2 Responses to “House Ethics Committee To Take Up Kelsey Complaint Wednesday”
Hope she takes it all the way to the State Supreme Court. Now they have Williams right where they want him. Unless he manages to put together a credible counter suit, in which case she might have been better served to let sleeping dogs lie. I for one would be interested in the document trail between now and April 2007, when Mumpower allegedly wrote his memo. Because if there were no further mentions of the incident, it would raise a number of red flags. Also it would be nice to have another victim come forward as it would be hard to believe, based on the behavior alleged of Williams, that this was a first time or isolated incident. If you are reeling around in a garage parking lot drunk off your ass and staring at people’s breasts, you are at the intermediate or advanced level of creepy lechery.
[...] Hope she takes it all the way to the State… [...]