Sex Scandals Shouldn’t Be Ousting Politicians
Backroom deals that oust politicians like Katie Hill are unfair. Luckily there is a readily available remedy.
It was Halloween. Katie Hill, a California Democrat, was in the well of the House of Representatives, giving her farewell-to-Congress speech — before even finishing her first term. The 32-year-old was a rising star in a class of rising stars — a smart, compelling campaigner who knocked off a Republican incumbent to win her district north of Los Angeles and help Democrats take the House. Now, she was roadkill.
As Hill herself tacitly acknowledged, her affair with a young female campaign staffer was a bad idea even if it predated her arrival in Washington, D.C. But she rightly lit into the dissemination of nude photos of her, which she accused her estranged husband of taking without her knowledge and putting in the hands of tabloids. Indeed, there are men who have survived worse allegations, such as Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, also a Californian, who had an affair with a staffer and is facing 60 charges relating to misappropriation of funds. Donald Trump, who faces civil suits for sexual harassment, basically admitted to sexual assault in that Access Hollywood interview.
