Members of Congress are already banned from dating their own staff, but one Colorado Republican is looking for additional guardrails amid a broader conversation about the imbalance of power in relationships with congressional aides.
Rep. Jeff Crank (R-Colo.) introduced a resolution Wednesday that would require members to disclose any sexual relationship with a House employee to the Ethics Committee — regardless of whose office the staffer works in.
Under current rules, the Code of Official Conduct only covers a member’s own supervised staff and aides on committees they sit on. Crank’s measure would expand that by routing other member-staff relationships into a confidential disclosure process the House Ethics Committee would have 60 days to establish. Married couples would be exempt.
“We must recognize that as elected officials, we can have unbalanced influence over House employees, regardless of who they work for,” Crank said in a statement. He added that some colleagues’ conduct has “undermined public trust in this institution and the legislative process.”
Power dynamics have been a hot topic on the Hill in recent weeks. Critics argue that members can make or break the careers of the people working for them — and that even a supposedly consensual relationship carries an inherent imbalance.
The catch, which more than a few members will note privately, is that plenty of lawmakers met their spouses while working in Congress. That’s why the marriage exemption exists.
The broader push to restrict lawmakers from dating staff has high-profile support. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) went even further Tuesday, saying he’d bar members from dating any Hill staffer, period — “as it would be in any workplace” — and that Congress should hold itself to the same standard as corporate America.
A bipartisan task force led by Reps. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) and Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) has been rewriting the House’s misconduct rules for months, with member-staffer relationships squarely in the mix.
This latest effort comes after former Reps. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) and Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) resigned in April amid sexual misconduct allegations. Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) is currently under investigation over alleged harassment of two young female staffers. He denies any wrongdoing.
