While South Dakota’s Republican leadership wallows in denial, other state legislatures are taking concrete action in response to allegations of sexual misconduct. Republican leaders in Iowa are creating a new human resources manager position to handle sexual harassment complaints. Elsewhere:
- In California, its state Senate has hired outside investigators to look into complaints of widespread harassment.
- In Rhode Island, the House speaker has said there will be sexual harassment training for the General Assembly, after a lawmaker accused another lawmaker of seeking sexual favors in exchange for bills to advance.
- In Massachusetts, the House speaker has ordered a review of the Legislature’s sexual harassment policies amid allegations of sexual misconduct by legislators or staff [Barbara Rodriguez, “Iowa Legislature Harassment Complaints Will Be Dealt with by New HR Manager,” AP via Des Moines Register, 2017.11.09].
South Dakota’s budget outlook is tight, but not so tight that Senator Ryan Maher can’t signal more funding coming for health care providers. Perhaps Maher and his fellow Republicans can find a few dollars (or even a budget-neutral solution) that would follow Iowa’s lead in moving responsibility for sexual harassment investigations away from the political leadership and toward a less victim-intimidating, more objective agency.
SD’s top cop apparently doesn’t care about sexual harassment and drunk driving. AG Jackley has known about my awful experiences with Gene Abdallah since Oct. 23rd when a reporter told him and asked if he should still appoint him. He didn’t even pause, he just repeated his resume. I sent his campaign manager an email on October 27th, he replied on October 31st that he would inform him of my concerns. I replied on Nov. 1st that I was going to send every state senator an email and if AG Jackley had any questions to let me know. I have not received a response.
Tiffany, I would go to Angela Kennecke of KELO news. She will bring it to the media and ask Jackley herself. You can always count on her to stand up for South Dakotans.
Did I miss any statements from Noem on this issue or other recent sexual issues? She is running for Governor last I heard. I though she was supposed to be a sex trafficking warrior to protect women. Now silence on not only our state legislature, but silence all around when it involves fellow legislators? Where is the leadership Kristi?
Noem wants to protect helpless little women by taking away a woman’s autonomy over her own body??
I often wonder about the sanity of right wing nut jobs pushing guns on helpless litlle women and then thoroughly p##@ing them off by virtually telling women white male wingnuts know what women and their bodies need.