Congress has a libido problem. It always has. Now, Colorado Republican Jeff Crank wants to force his colleagues to confess their inter-office trysts to the House Ethics Committee. His new resolution, introduced Wednesday, targets the loopholes in current rules. Right now, lawmakers cannot sleep with their own staff. That is banned. But dating the scheduler down the hall? Totally fine. Crank wants that loophole closed, or at least monitored.
Under his proposal, if a politician starts sleeping with a staffer from another office, they must quietly tell the Ethics panel. If they break up, they have to report that too. Promptly. It is a babysitting service for adults with security clearances.
“We must do better,” Crank said, pointing to the obvious. He noted that elected officials hold massive, unbalanced power over Capitol Hill employees, regardless of whose payroll they are on. He is not wrong. The power dynamic is skewed. It always is.
This push comes right after Speaker Mike Johnson called for a blanket ban on all member-staffer relationships. Johnson thinks Congress should at least match the basic HR standards of corporate America. It is a low bar. Yet, here we are.
The sudden panic over congressional dating habits follows a messy news cycle. The New York Post recently exposed Senator Ruben Gallego’s past consensual flings with two Democratic aides while he was in the House. Gallego dismissed it as mere gossip. The Senate Ethics Committee already threw out a complaint against him.
But the ghost of scandals past still haunts the halls. Former Representatives Eric Swalwell and Tony Gonzales both exited Congress earlier this year under dark clouds of staffer-related allegations. One involved a rape accusation; the other ended in a tragic suicide. It is ugly stuff.
House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain agreed that consent does not erase the power imbalance. She wants a total ban. Will it work? Unlikely. Politicians are creative. But for now, the House is pretending it can regulate human nature.
