Sexual Harassment Meets Minnesota Nice?

Despite the extensive media coverage and credible reports, I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around all these lurid accounts and disturbing allegations of sexual harassment. Other than the victims, few people (like me) realized how bad things actually were. There seems to be no end to the outrageousness of this illegal and reprehensible behavior. It’s gone now from misconduct into some kind of bubonic plague for obnoxious, power-mad guys who can’t keep their hands to themselves — or their units safely tucked away in their respective pants.

Yeah, I always figured things were bad, I just never figured things were THAT bad.

You’ve heard of AMBER ALERTS? Maybe we should have some kind of advanced warning system for mothers, daughters, wives — females, in general — every single day. I’m not kidding.

Apparently, if you’re female, just getting up in the morning and trying to live your life has become a dangerous activity. Especially if guys like Republican Representative Tony Cornish are lurking in the shadows of your workplace. Especially if such predators won’t leave you alone AND won’t leave the toxic workplace they’ve created.

Last weekend the dailies in both Minneapolis and St. Paul featured long-overdue exposes about sexual misconduct within The Minnesota State Legislature. Unfortunately, Tony Cornish was not the only guilty player in this tsunami of misguided misogyny. No, there were others, most notably DFL Senator Dan Schoen.

But these days I’m trying to keep my blogs shorter and more readable. I have to watch my word count. Otherwise I’d be coming up with a 3000-word treatise three times a week on “The Psychology and Legality of Shockingly Inappropriate Behavior of Men Towards Women in The Workplace.”

Yeah, it really has gotten THAT bad.

And the guys in charge who manage this State legislative body have no one to blame but themselves. Their late 19th century attitudes and rules and procedures are just too nice — for the harassers, that is, but not for their poor victims.

Let me put that another way, just so there won’t be any misunderstandings. If a guy tells a visiting lobbyist, “Look down, I have a raging bo**er…You can’t leave,” the way Cornish did, he’s beyond help. He’s way beyond any intervention or recovery. Game over.

Why?

Because he’s the worst kind of predator: the kind who feels no guilt AND thinks he’s funny & cute. He’s dangerous, and he has no business working in the public service sector.

And yet, both “The Minneapolis Star Tribune” and “The St. Paul Pioneer Press” reported on how nice former House Speaker Kurt Zellers was to Cornish. Almost as if his failed attempt at warning the unapologetic sexual predator made Zellers a hero for single-handedly denouncing sexual harassment in the workplace? Although Zellers tried to make it sound something like that, his actions only revealed another enabler in the good ol’ boys network, Minnesota chapter. Even his comments came across as an overly conscientious bureaucrat serving up his CYA excuses with a mere perfunctory wrist slap.

According to written statements both newspapers published, Zellers said he once met with Cornish “in response to second-hand rumors.” It happened when Zellers served as Speaker of The House, circa 2011-2012:

“At that time, I informed Rep. Cornish in the strongest possible terms that sexual harassment of any kind is unacceptable and will not be tolerated at the Minnesota Legislature.

“I also informed him that if I received any complaint we would immediately begin disciplinary proceedings.”

In other words, Bad State Representative! Naughty State Representative! Do that bad thing again and we’ll really punish you, you bad boy! Naughty! Naughty!

In other words, nothing really happened to Cornish at that meeting. All he got from Zellers was a lame-ass “warning.”
No direct attempt to remove Cornish from office. No expulsion or public censure. No leaks to the media, either. Just some kind of hush-hush private meeting where the naughty public servant got his wrist slapped (poor guy), then promised he’d never ever be naughty again. Problem was, naughty public servant did indeed act out and act up again. And again. And again. That meeting took place five or six years ago when Zellers was Speaker of The House. Imagine how many more women Cornish has bothered, harassed, even abused since that time…

Cornish didn’t need a private meeting, he needed to leave his job at the State Legislature. He not only needed to resign, he deserved a police record and court appearance. He certainly didn’t deserve a job as a public servant. Neither did DFL Senator Dan Schoen. But as of this date, neither predatory male has gotten what he’s truly deserved.

In fact, Schoen got a similar meeting and treatment that was just as nice as Cornish’s had been. Back in 2015, when Schoen served in the House, Schoen’s inappropriate conduct reached caucus leader DFL Representative Paul Thissen. Like Zellers, he gave Schoen a stern, no-nonsense warning. As in, keep it up and bad things will happen to you, Dan. Like Zellers, Thissen thought Schoen’s bad behavior would stop. Of course, it didn’t stop at all, it only became worse.

At the time of this posting more breaking news about Schoen has come to light. Apparently, he also sent some woman inappropriate (probably suggestive, probably naked) “graphic images.” Stay tuned for even more sordid revelations. The HE SAID/SHE SAID excuse for inaction is no longer operating here. Now it’s more like she said and she keeps saying and she keeps providing documentation and mounting evidence to support her allegations.

So why do guys like Zellers and Thissen think giving a “stern-talking-to” would actually work for a-holes like Cornish and Schoen? Oh, right. They’re guys. They’re all guys. It’s a guy thing. And because we’re in Minnesota, it’s a nice guy thing.

But these guys aren’t really nice and neither is the sexual harassment they keep perpetrating. And please don’t start blaming the outdated legislative policies on sexual harassment for your lack of interest. You guys were elected to be legislators and state and federal laws are being broken in your own legislature. So legislate, already!

Enact some new laws to keep guys like Cornish and Schoen from breaking existing laws. And please, no more excuses.
Get to work. Now.

Why is there never any time to upgrade your own rules of conduct in our State’s workplace but always more than enough time to play grab-ass with the women who work as staffers, lobbyists, and legislators there?

Think about it. Then keep on thinking about it until the next election rolls around, guys…