Two of the most recent lawmakers in Congress to face accusations of sexual misconduct are John Conyers of Michigan and Al Franken of Minnesota. While their stories are different in their own way, both have treated women with such ugly behavior that neither of them should remain in office any longer than they already have. Franken has been accused by five different women, so far, of inappropriate touching while Conyers’ accusers were employees of his that he allegedly demanded sexual favors from, though he denies doing such a thing.

According to The New York Times, the top two leaders of the House, Speaker Paul Ryan and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, have publicly called on Conyers to resign from his post in Congress and many other “Senior House Democrats” have demanded Franken’s resignation as well.

These demands need to be carried out because our government needs the victims to know that we do not tolerate sexual misconduct or such disgusting misconduct of any sort, and we especially do not allow them to hold public office in this country.

But that’s not all that we have found out from the outcome of the allegations against these two men. In Conyers case, he allegedly used $27,000 of taxpayer money from one of his office accounts to settle a sexual misconduct claim and disguised the use of the money as “severance pay” which I suppose isn’t all that inaccurate.

It certainly isn’t the whole truth that the public deserves to know about how their tax money is being used by the men and women they pay it to. Conyers has denied doing so but it is being looked into and we will hopefully find out for sure whether or not these claims are true.

This isn’t the only time taxpayer money has been used to settle lawmakers’ misconduct claims, though, as we have recently discovered that since 1997, Congress has paid more than $17 million to “settle scores of workplace claims” which are in the numbers upwards of 260 claims. So how is this legal that lawmakers can use our tax money that we paid to settle their misconduct suits and keep it all so private? Well, that’s an easy one. In 1995, a law called the Congressional Accountability Act was passed that, according to USA Today, made “lawmakers subject to the same workplace laws against harassment and discrimination as the rest of American employers."

What this means is that normally, when a regular civilian is accused of sexual harassment and an official claim is filed, the harasser either pays their settlement with their own money or the employer where the harassment took place will have to pay the settlement for the harasser. This goes for lawmakers too because of the Congressional Accountability Act. Lawmakers receive taxpayer money for salary and their “employer” is the American taxpayers.

So, either way you look at it, taxpayers foot the bill and bail out these politicians on their nasty acts of misconduct. This allows them to remain in office and the worst part is, they don’t have to make a single bit of this public which means taxpayers don’t even know that their money is used for these settlements and they definitely don’t know when it happens either.

In light of all of the harassment claims coming out now, a lot of lawmakers are calling for the 1995 law to be repealed or changed so taxpayers don’t have to pay for this and to make it mandatory that the public knows about each of these claims against the lawmakers but we don’t know if anything will be changed for sure. This is why we need to use our voice to force the government to play ball and do right by the American people.

This secrecy from the government has told us that they are no longer the government that works in the public for the public. No, they are now the government that has been exposed for the piles upon piles of disgusting secrets that have been hidden from public eye for so long, too long.

If your tax money being used for these settlements doesn’t frustrate you enough, then maybe this will: when a normal public employer has a sexual harassment claim filed, the worker’s claims of the harassment can file a lawsuit in federal court literally whenever they want to, but this is not the same for people who serve the public. In Congress, workers who wish the file a claim or a lawsuit against a lawmaker have to first go through a 90-day “mandatory dispute resolution process” which is basically fancy talk for “we want to make sure this is completely true and we will investigate thoroughly to disprove these claims or at least stall long enough to find out how to keep them quiet.”

Then, the victim of the harassment must go to mandatory counseling. No, you didn’t misread that. The victim has to go to mandatory counseling but the harasser, a lawmaker in charge of looking out for the best interest of the public, isn’t required to attend any counseling and they aren’t even guaranteed to take on any consequences at all for their actions. And even if it goes to court, they aren’t worried because the American people apparently pay the settlement for them.

This needs to be changed immediately. The 1995 law should be repealed or updated however necessary, the government should adopt zero tolerance for sexual or racial misconduct, and the American taxpayers should no longer have to pay for these acts of misconduct that we had nothing to do with. Maybe the same people who funded these lawmakers’ campaigns should be the ones who pay the settlements since their money played a huge part in getting these people elected in the first place. Taxpayers should not have to foot the bill and lawmakers cannot continue to get away with this behavior.