Sex, Lies, and Politics

What is sexual harassment? harassment (typically of a woman) in a workplace, or other professional or social situation, involving the making of unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks.

In the political arena sex has been a major problem. Men in politics have the personality traits of outgoing, aggressive, and controlling. Women in politics also have these same traits. It is nothing new for a woman to complain about unwanted sexual comments or advances by a candidate. The Republican Party learned to weaponize this issue to bring down leading candidates years ago. Never have I seen it done by people in the same party until this campaign season. 

I am a citizen journalist. I have been covering female political topic and events for over ten years now. I strongly believe in covering issues that matter to women in today’s political world. I admit to being a Democrat. When I first started blogging there were few women in the field and we were not well respected because we were women. In all my years covering events and topics never once has a candidate asked me to bury a story or just not cover it, because it might hurt their political changes. That is up, until now. 

Deb Haaland, a candidate for Congressional District 1, did call me and ask me to just let it go. To bury this story and give the women in question her free five minutes of fame without comment or inspection. I told her I can’t do that but I would like a formal statement of your side of these events. To date I have not received one. I felt that her request violated my first amendment rights as a citizen journalist. I will not be voting for or supporting this candidate anytime in the future. I told her to stand up and fight these alleged allegations. This is about more than just losing a few votes. 

#metoo movement is not going away anytime in the near future. It is cleaning house of men in powerful positions who feel they can behave in grossly inappropriate ways toward women. Washington, DC is ripe with this problem in the halls of government and we need representatives who will standup forcibly in defense of women. Powerful men that sexually harass women are not afraid to threaten women to protect their positions in power. We don’t need someone who will put their own political goals before the rights of women or men.  

As for the incident in question. Last week Nicole Bagg held a press conference aided by Kathleen Burke to accuse lead congressional candidate Deb Haaland of intently ignoring a sexual harassment complaint made to her. She alleged that she was prevented from talking with then party chairwomen Haaland by two male staffers. My first reaction to this press conference was to investigate the claims and review my own information before writing a blog on this very important claim. I sent out request from all the people involved and the candidates I considered top tier in this race. I did receive a reply for Pat Davis which I will be printing at a later date. I still want to give the other candidates more time to respond to this very important topic and how they would handle similar complaints once in office. I do applaud candidate Davis for replying so quickly to my request.  

 

After talking with individuals at the event and reviewing my own photos I can find no proof that Nicole Bagg ever approached any staffer at the event on October of 2016. I was personally at the event and was taking pictures. Since Ms. Bagg was with a group that was causing a disruption in the meeting I was watching their interaction with the staffers and the chairwomen very closely just in case they turned violent. I had been alerted by the presents of police in the hall that something was amiss from the very start when I walked in. I even approached one of the female staffers and asked her why police were in the hall and if they were expecting trouble. I spoke with Robert Lara who was one of the staffers alleged to have prevented Ms. Bagg from speaking directly with the chairwomen. He states firmly that at no time did Ms. Bagg attempt to approach him or any other staffer to either formally or informally report a case of harassment to the party. My photos and other eye witness accounts support his view of the events.

Why should this matter? Well first of all other women did go to the next chairperson of the party and report sexual harassment by the individual Ms. Bagg claims also harassed her. The party chairman resigned because he failed to appropriately address those complaints. I will not name those individuals out of respect for the privacy of the victims. I am very disturbed that Ms. Bagg in her press conference may have giving too much information about the other victims so as to out them to the public. As a citizen journalist we try to always respect the privacy of women who make sexually harassment claims while trying to report the facts of the case.  

Next the male staffers of the party should be exonerated of all wrong doing because these types of false allegations can do damage to a person reputation. To not address this issue is as bad as not addressing a complaint of harassment in that it makes victims out of innocent staffers. 

Lastly is the fact that an insider group lead by Kathleen Burke has weaponized this type of claim by a victim two years later to attack a lead candidate in her own party is not surprising in the least. However, it is very disturbing to say the least.  Ms. Burke was photographed outside with Jill Stein at the National Presidential Democratic Convention because her democratic candidate did not get the party’s endorsement for president. Ms. Burke has been training individuals in an attempt to take over the leadership of the State Democratic Party of New Mexico in order to place herself in control of the party. She has made it clear that anyone that supported Clinton in the past election is not welcome in her vision of the party. This of course includes Deb Haaland.