Senate passes mandatory sexual harassment training
Republican senators Klobuchar and Grassley authored the legislation.
— -- Just before the Senate adjourned for the Veterans Day holiday weekend Thursday, the upper chamber passed a resolution mandating that sexual harassment training will be mandatory for senators, staff, and interns of the Senate.
“Making harassment training mandatory in the Senate sends a clear message: Harassment of any kind is not and will not be tolerated in Congress. Period,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in a press release.
Klobuchar and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa Republican, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, co-authored the legislation.
"No place of work is immune to the all-too-prevalent scourge of sexual harassment, but we in Congress have a particular duty to set high standards of conduct,” Grassley said in a statement.
“In the wake of so many scandals and reports of sexual harassment around the country, it’s critical that we continue do everything we can to prevent it," he said.
The bipartisan resolution requires all Senate members, staff, and interns to complete the sexual harassment prevention training offered by the Office of Compliance or the Office of the Senate Chief Counsel for Employment.
The training must be completed within 60 days, and each office would be required to submit certification of completed training, which would be published on the public website of the Secretary of the Senate.
The resolution also calls for an anonymous survey to be administered by the Sergeant at Arms that will gather information about instances of sexual harassment or related behavior in the Senate.