{"id":38216,"date":"2022-09-26T17:17:08","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T23:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-legislators-weigh-changes-to-harassment-policies\/"},"modified":"2022-09-26T23:17:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T23:17:08","slug":"new-mexico-legislators-weigh-changes-to-harassment-policies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/new-mexico-legislators-weigh-changes-to-harassment-policies\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mexico legislators weigh changes to harassment policies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A maintenance worker power-washes the state seal at an entrance of the capitol building on Monday, Aug. 24, 2020, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The building has been closed to the public since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Legislative meetings and gubernatorial addresses are broadcast online. (AP Photo\/Cedar Attanasio)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SANTA FE \u2013 State legislators in New Mexico are reconsidering how they evaluate complaints of sexual misconduct against colleagues, amid outrage about the handling of a complaint against an influential senator.<\/p>\n

A panel of leading legislators met Monday to discuss possible changes to ground rules for harassment investigations at the Legislature.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has become clear that our anti-harassment policy is not working,\u201d said Democratic state Rep. Damon Ely of Corrales, co-chairman of a legislative ethics committee. \u201cThis is intended to start a discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harassment complaints against lawmakers are often assigned for an initial investigation to a panel of four legislators, which may deadlock on a 2-2 vote. Ely proposed the changes that would assign an outside expert to break any tie vote, with public notice of the outcome.<\/p>\n

Ely outlined proposals that would remove secrecy provisions that currently prevent people who complain of harassment by legislators from publicly discussing any investigation that has been dismissed without a finding of probable cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do we fix that so that we have closure for those people?\u201d said Democratic Sen. George Mu\u00f1oz of Gallup. \u201cIt can\u2019t come out in a tie. There has to be closure for both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also Monday, a coalition of advocacy groups held a news conference in Santa Fe to describe a \u201ctoxic culture\u201d that favors perpetrators over victims of harassment at the Legislature.<\/p>\n

Some said an independent authority such as New Mexico\u2019s State Ethics Commission would be better suited to review harassment complaints against legislators \u2013 rather than a panel of legislators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current system only supports the perpetrators,\u201d said Lan Sena, policy director for the Center for Civic Policy. \u201cThis is a classic case of the fox guarding the hen house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sena reiterated calls for the resignation of Democratic state Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto of Albuquerque in response to harassment accusations.<\/p>\n

Ivey-Soto, a gatekeeper on election legislation, recently announced that a Senate investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against him had been \u201cindefinitely suspended, with no further action to be taken.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a leaked report also shows that a special counsel to the investigation concluded there was probable cause to indicate that Ivey-Soto violated anti-harassment policies. And the female lobbyist who leveled accusations of harassment against Ivey-Soto has filed a lawsuit challenging secrecy provisions at the Legislature that prevent her from saying more.<\/p>\n

Marianna Anaya\u2019s harassment complaint to the Legislature in February was accompanied by an open letter to the public that accused Ivey-Soto of groping her at a hotel reception in 2015 and of more recent aggressive and disrespectful behavior while discussing proposed legislation over drinks. She called on the lawmaker to resign, as other women say they were harassed by Ivey-Soto.<\/p>\n

Ivey-Soto said he has no recollection of touching Anaya during the encounter and that their encounters over the years were never sexual. The Associated Press generally does not identify people alleging sexual assault, but Anaya has been openly public about her allegations and previous advocacy against harassment.<\/p>\n

On Sept. 24, Ivey-Soto was removed from one of his leadership positions on an interim committee in response to harassment allegations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A maintenance worker power-washes the state seal at an entrance of the capitol building on Monday, Aug. 24, 2020, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The building has been closed to the public since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Legislative meetings and gubernatorial addresses are broadcast online. (AP Photo\/Cedar Attanasio)du1-i-syn SANTA FE \u2013 State legislators […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815,138],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico","tag-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38216"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}