The House just voted 357-65 to bury a resolution that would have forced the release of all congressional sexual misconduct and harassment reports—effectively ensuring that lawmakers accused of predatory behavior can keep hiding behind institutional secrecy.
Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican and sexual assault survivor, forced the floor vote on her resolution directing the House Ethics Committee to make all such reports public. The bipartisan response? Kill it by referring it to committee, where it will die quietly.
The Ethics Committee—led by Republican Michael Guest and Democrat Mark DeSaulnier—urged members to vote against transparency, arguing the resolution “could chill victim cooperation and witness participation” and might “re-traumatize” victims through “public disclosures of interim work product.”
Translation: We’ll protect the powerful by claiming we’re protecting the vulnerable.
Mace introduced the resolution after NBC News reported that Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas had sent sexually explicit text messages to a female aide, Regina Santos-Aviles, with whom he allegedly had an affair before she died by suicide last year. Gonzales previously denied the affair but has gone silent since the texts surfaced.
“I would like members of Congress to tell their female colleagues where they stand on sexual harassment within the U.S. House of Representatives,” Mace told reporters. “Do you support women up here, that work up here, and who are your colleagues, or do you not?”
The House answered: Not really.
The Ethics Committee did announce Wednesday it’s opening an investigation into Gonzales. He said in a statement he “welcome[s] the opportunity to present all the facts to the committee.”
But here’s the thing about Ethics Committee investigations: they only have jurisdiction over sitting members. If Gonzales resigns or loses his seat before the report is done, it disappears. He was just forced into a May runoff election Tuesday night against a GOP challenger, so that’s a very real possibility.
Mace has been at the center of the fight for transparency before—she was one of just four House Republicans who teamed with Democrats on a discharge petition that eventually forced the Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Only 65 members voted against burying her resolution. The other 357 decided that when it comes to sexual misconduct allegations against their colleagues, what happens in Congress should stay in Congress.