Heyl: Tyrannical Office Behavior Helped To Topple Tim Murphy

It wasn’t just the extramarital affair that proved to be U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy’s undoing. Nor was it the publication of text messages in which the anti-abortion congressman seemingly suggested his mistress consider getting one during a pregnancy false alarm.

Those developments certainly were significant factors in the suburban Pittsburgh lawmaker’s terrible, horrible, no good very bad week. But largely overlooked in the whirlwind 48 hours that saw Murphy go from being potentially re-electable to announcing his retirement to resigning from office was a memo detailing his boorish behavior toward his aides.

Purportedly written by his chief of staff, Susan Mosychuk, and detailed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the memo outlined Murphy’s “ongoing and ever more pronounced pattern of sustained inappropriate behavior” when dealing with staffers.

The memo accuses Murphy of pushing documents off of a table in anger, verbally abusing underlings and terrifying Mosychuk for texting, watching YouTube videos and reading his iPad while driving her to an event in a torrential downpour. It describes Murphy’s behavior as “hostile, erratic, unstable, angry, aggressive and abusive.”

The memo also noted that more than 100 staffers had left Murphy’s office since she started working there in 2003 and that the office had nearly 100 percent turnover in just one year. How impressive is that latter statistic?

Consider this: In 2012, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas was voted the House’s meanest member in a bipartisan survey of Hill staffers by Washingtonian magazine. The Washington Times subsequently reported that an average of half of Lee’s staff quits every year and one year she lost 17 of 23 aides, which amounts to 74 percent of her staff.

Only 74 percent? Compared to Murphy, Lee was an amateur at antagonizing employees. And this was a woman who once was sued by her former legislative director for allegedly ignoring her vision and reading disabilities by forcing her to work extended hours without breaks and telling her more than once, “I don’t care anything about your disability.”

Why did House Speaker Paul Ryan announce Murphy’s resignation a day after Murphy announced he wouldn’t seek another term next year?

According to Politico, House Republican leaders pressured Murphy to quit out of fears stories about the toxic environment in his office wouldn’t go away. There were legitimate concerns the House Ethics Committee might have to investigate his alleged mistreatment of staffers.

The post also was critical of Mosychuk’s managerial skills and made it apparent that neither she nor Murphy are likely to get any gifts from staffers on National Bosses Day on October 16 - five days before Murphy leaves office. But the person ultimately responsible for fostering a humane office environment ultimately is the highest ranking person in the office, no?

Murphy was a psychologist before embarking on his political career. He once wrote a parental advice book titled “The Angry Child.”

In an irony as delicious as any steak served at Morton’s, it appears that political career is ending partly because he couldn’t stop acting like the topic of his writing.

Eric Heyl is Patch’s Pittsburgh field editor. Reach him at 412-334-4033 or Eric.Heyl@Patch.com.