Oregon Senate President Peter Courtney Must Resign

On February 9th, 2018, Senator Jeff Kruse announced his resignation from the Oregon State Senate, following formal complaints filed against him by Senator Sara Gelser and Senator Elizabeth Steiner Hayward. Senator Gelser first reported this issue in March 2016, yet for almost two years afterwards Kruse felt free to totally disregard the personal boundaries of his female colleagues. Why?

The person with the ultimate duty to enforce sexual harassment policy was Senate President Peter Courtney. Yet according to the official investigation by the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI), he did not. Their report found “substantial evidence” that Courtney failed to address sexual harassment occurring under his watch. [1]

This was not because Kruse hid his behavior well, in fact it was common knowledge among capitol staff. Courtney’s own Chief of Staff, Becky Imholt, described her reaction to Senators Gelser and Steiner Hayward’s complaint: “I’ve had [Kruse] hug me. I don’t hug anybody at work. […] So I knew what they were talking about, um, you know, when they described it.” [2]

When faced with the task of publicly enforcing policy, he failed to maintain normal standards of professionalism. According to testimony from Gelser (also in the BOLI report), during a restaurant meeting with Courtney to discuss the enforcement of sexual harassment policy, Courtney “freaked out and was yelling at me I didn’t understand”, and “ultimately it became a disturbance in the restaurant”, with Courtney’s wife ending the situation by asking to leave. [3]

None of this is new. Even in his prior career as assistant president of Western Oregon University, Courtney failed to address sexual harassment complaints seriously — Two separate women say that in 2001 they came forward with complaints of sexual harassment, and the university failed to act. Both women began legal proceedings, and both reached settlements before trial. [4]

The only effective solution to the problem of sexual harassment is to enforce policies against it. If it is allowed to slide, then it becomes an ingrained part of the culture, requiring change from the top to fix. Preventing sexual harassment is part of Senator Courtney’s job, a job which he no longer has the moral authority to perform. No single individual is more important than the safety of all the women in the capitol — It’s time for him to resign.

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[1] BOLI report, page 2

[2] BOLI report, page 23

[3] BOLI report, page 32

[4] Jaquiss, N. (2019, Feb 3). Peter Courtney’s Failure To Protect Women From Sexual Harassment Goes Back Decades. Willamette Week, https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/02/23/peter-courtneys-failure-to-protect-women-from-sexual-harassment-goes-back-decades/