John Krull is director of Franklin College's Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.
Politicians never should be trusted with policing themselves.
Maybe they can’t do it.
Possibly they won’t do it.
Inevitably they don’t do it.
Organization Day for the Indiana General Assembly demonstrated that much.
Organization Day is mostly a ceremonial occasion, a chance for old and new members to acquaint or reacquaint themselves with the Statehouse and an opportunity for the leaders of the Indiana House of Representatives and the Indiana Senate to bloviate banalities before a captive audience.
The 2024 Organization Day, though, became something more—a chance to duck questions.
Not long before the day began, The Indianapolis Star broke a story in which three women accused Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor, D-Indianapolis, of sexual harassment.
The particulars of the story were depressing because we’ve seen them so many times before with so many other political figures. The three women said Taylor, who is 54 and married, pursued them even after they had rebuffed him. One even said he pinned her against a wall and refused to let her go until someone else witnessed his actions.
That witness, by the way, confirmed the woman’s account.
Taylor responded to the allegations by offering non-denial denials and half-hearted, evasive, bank-shot apologies.
(An aside: Any apology that includes the words “if” or “but” isn’t really an apology. It’s either an attempt to slither out from under any responsibility for bad behavior or a maneuver to reposition for another line of attack.)
At a press gaggle on Organization Day, Taylor—predictably—said he wasn’t going to take questions about his alleged misconduct.
He was speaking at all because he’d been reelected as minority leader by his fellow Senate Democrats.
Now, admittedly, being the leader of a caucus that is as outnumbered and outgunned as the Indiana Senate Democrats is not a coveted gig. It’s a bit like being captain of the Washington Generals, the basketball team whose job it is to go out and be humiliated by the Harlem Globetrotters night after night after night.
But having Taylor remain in the caucus’ top spot also suggested a circling of wagons, an attempt to obscure misconduct and protect the person accused of it.
If so, that would be typical of the Statehouse. In the more than 40 years I have wandered the halls of that stately old building, it always has been a snake pit.
Lawmakers, the overwhelming majority of whom always have been male, come to legislative sessions and see the days and long hours away from home as an excuse to prowl.
And, in some cases, to hunt.
When I was a newspaper reporter, there were times when my female colleagues asked me to tag along or at least be close by when they had to interview certain male legislators—not because they weren’t capable of handling the situation themselves but because my presence meant they wouldn’t have to waste time doing so. Time is a valuable commodity when one works in a profession driven by deadlines.
The fact that accomplished, impressive women had to make such calculations indicates both how wasteful this ongoing tolerance of sexual misbehavior is and how deeply embedded it is in the culture of the Indiana General Assembly.
The sad thing is that everyone knows about this toxicity in the people’s houses.
A few years ago, when then Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill found himself accused by four women, including one House member, of groping and harassing them at a close-of-session party, he shut down any talk of impeaching him by threatening to tell tales of similar predatory behavior by lawmakers.
That’s why the legislators can’t solve this problem.
Because every caucus in the legislature has at least one sexual miscreant in it, they all have reasons to cover up misconduct and protect predators. The lawmakers’ first priority always will be to save themselves and each other, not the women who just want to do their jobs without being pawed at and preyed upon by men often old enough to be their fathers or grandfathers.
Greg Taylor stands accused of shameful conduct.
The chances that the Indiana Senate will do anything about it are between nil and nothing, because every person in the state’s legislative branch knows this problem is bigger—much, much, much bigger—than any one man, caucus or party.
But they can’t indict Taylor without indicting themselves.
That’s why politicians never should be trusted with policing themselves.
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