Whistleblower protection proposal clears legislature

A Riverside County lawmaker’s proposal to secure protections for legislative staffers who report ethics or other breaches related to sexual harassment and similar misconduct by their bosses is now bound for the governor’s desk, following the Assembly’s unanimous vote today in favor of the bill.
Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, called the
Legislature’s passage of AB 403 — on Thursday, the Senate voted 38-0 in favor, with one abstention and one absence — “long overdue” and a major step toward beginning the “healing process” for those staffers who have been victimized.
“There is no justifiable reason why legislative staff have not had whistleblower protection,” Melendez said. “(Now) the culture (will) begin to change, and the trust (will) be rebuilt.”
The legislation, known as the Legislative Employee Whistleblower Protection Act, has been carried by Melendez in the same general form for the last four years. Previous bills netted wide bipartisan support and passed the Assembly but were held up and died due to inaction in the Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Long Beach.
The current bill was co-sponsored by multiple legislators, including Assemblywomen Laura Friedman of Glendale and Cristina Garcia of Bell Gardens, both Democrats.
“It’s taken us four years to reach this single moment of reckoning to empower trust within this body,” said Garcia, who chairs the Legislative Women’s Caucus.
“Power must be balanced and checked without fear of retaliation, not only for victims but to set the Legislature on a path towards the cultural change this community needs so that we have no future victims,” she said.
“This bill won’t be the pill that cures all our ills, but it does add a basic and necessary protection to ensure that power does not silence equality, safety or trust that we all must have for lasting change.”AB 403 replicates the measures Melendez introduced in prior years, seeking to ensure that members of the Legislature, as well as their agents, face consequences for intimidating or threatening a person who attempts to draw attention to their alleged misdeeds.
The legislation specifies that any lawmaker, or someone on his or her staff, “who interferes with, or retaliates against, a legislative employee’s exercise of the right to make a protected disclosure (regarding activity) that may constitute a violation of law, including sexual harassment, or a violation of a legislative standard of conduct” shall be subject to criminal and civil penalties.
Those would include a fine of $10,000 and a year in county jail. A victim would also have the right to file a lawsuit and seek damages.
The pending law is intended to provide the same protections afforded employees in state agencies and the courts under the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1999, which freed impacted parties to file ethics complaints or other official allegations of wrongdoing without fear of retaliation.