One of our state lawmakers entertained us again this weekend with the shenanigans of an on-again, off-again, on-again announcement of his resignation following revelations that he - the Tennessee House of Representatives' majority whip - reportedly had sexually harassed three women with inappropriate text messages.
We say "entertained" because the details of both the text requests seeking inappropriate pictures and the yes-no-yes resignation are so ridiculous they seem slapstick.
Instead the comedy becomes tragedy with the realization that the whole mess is pathetically mired in the General Assembly's lame policy on sexual harassment complaints - one that clearly is constructed to be more protection for lawmakers than protection for the victims of harassment.
The resigned majority whip, Jeremy Durham, does not deny sending the text messages. He says he doesn't remember sending them. And he blames the "liberal media."
Dear readers, please ponder that for a moment. While it's true that the press does buy ink by the barrel, trust your gut that there isn't a reporter alive who can control your mind or even the common sense-challenged mind of Jeremy Durham, to text young women after midnight inappropriately asking for meet-ups or pictures. Nor could the press force Durham to write a resignation letter that he later says was "not supposed to be out there," then reissues it about two hours later with an additional paragraph.
According to caucus leadership, Durham, R-Franklin, made the decision to resign hours after The Tennessean published an investigation that included three women who said they received such messages. Two of the women provided the Tennessean text messages from Durham that were sent in 2013. The women acknowledge that they didn't file formal complaints. They said they were afraid to.
Republican lawmakers and House Speaker Beth Harwell are calling for an investigation. What's too bad is that they didn't do that earlier this month when Tennessee Republican leaders were first told of a potential sexual harassment incident involving Durham - about a week before an unprecedented House GOP caucus meeting to decide the fate of his leadership role. Instead, they swept it under the rug, after running all of the reporters out of the room.
Here's how that played out: Rep. David Alexander, R-Winchester, said a woman contacted him about Durham's behavior about a week before the Jan. 12 meeting where GOP caucus members were set to discuss Durham's future in leadership.
"The words she used were sexual harassment," Alexander told the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville. She "seemed very determined" to discuss her concerns at the meeting, he said, but she did not disclose specific details.
Alexander said he referred the woman to Connie Ridley, head of legislative human resources, and alerted Republican House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga. Alexander said he received a conference call from Ridley, a legislative attorney and a staff member for House Speaker Beth Harwell.
McCormick, Ridley and Harwell all confirmed that they were informed of the woman's call to Alexander. McCormick confirmed discussing with Harwell's chief of staff, Scott Gilmer, and House GOP Caucus Chairman Glen Casada whether it would be appropriate for the woman to address the caucus. "I think the general response was that it would be a bad precedent, just to get somebody who shows up at a caucus meeting and goes after a member, without going through a formal process," McCormick said.
Thus Durham's fellow legislators say the specific concerns were never disclosed to them, some Republican lawmakers confirmed to the Tennessean.
At heart here is a legislative sexual harassment policy that outside experts told the Tennessean is mired in secrecy and contributes to an environment where sexual harassment by the state's elected leaders can go essentially unchecked. The experts say the forms complainants are asked to file stress secrecy, reading more like gag orders than petitions for help.
Further, Tennessee officials declined multiple public records requests - even those seeking simply for the number of complaints against lawmakers and asking whether any discipline has ever come from such an investigation. The state's head of legislative human resources said the state's policy forbids her from acknowledging whether complaints exist.
So, it's clear. The General Assembly is a boy's club. And many lawmakers - even the female ones - for years have just circled the wagons to keep it that way.
Rep. Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville, on Monday called for a committee investigation: "As a parent, I'm concerned. How should this be handled if this were to happen to my daughter?"
He told the Tennessean it would take a simple majority of the 73-member GOP caucus to create such a committee.
Well, here's betting one of the liberal media's metaphorical barrels of ink: That majority will be harder to get than one would think, and even once it's convened, little will change.