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An administrator for the House Conduct Committee notified members by email Oct. 14 of a hearing tentatively scheduled on the 19th from 11 am to 1 pm.
That hearing would serve as the final chapter in a complaint former state Rep. Diego Hernandez (D-East Portland) filed in January 2021 against then-House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland).
In his complaint, Hernandez alleged Kotek retaliated against him for refusing to vote with her on a contentious 2019 bill that trimmed public employee benefits. Kotek, normally a staunch ally of public employee unions, had to work very hard to find Democratic votes to pass the bill. One of her opponents in the current governor’s race, former state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappose), made her support for the Student Success Act, a new, $1 billion tax on corporations, contingent on passage of the benefit cuts.
A year later, three women lodged sexual misconduct complaints against Hernandez, and Kotek called on him to resign. Over the course of the next year, investigators for the Legislative Equity Office built a case against him based on the complaints that he’d harassed women in the Capitol.
As WW reported earlier, Melissa Healy, a lawyer at the Stoel Rives firm, investigated Hernandez’s complaint and, in a draft report released in September, found that while his account of Kotek’s harsh reaction to his vote might have been accurate, her behavior did not violate Legislative conduct rules.
Healy’s investigation, however, took more than 600 days to complete, far longer than the 84-day maximum laid out in House rules. (Kotek, who resigned as speaker in January 2022 to run for governor, says she had nothing to do with the length of the investigation. She notes that the Legislative Equity Office, which hired Healy, is designed to operate independently from legislative leadership in order to impartially consider complaints.)
In a written response to the Conduct Committee on Oct. 3, Kotek wrote that she was satisfied with Healy’s investigation and reiterated that Hernandez’s complaint was baseless.
“His complaint against me was a blatant attempt to distract people from his own harmful behavior, and it undermines the true goal of the Conduct Committee, which is to make the Capitol a safe and welcoming place for everyone to work,” Kotek wrote.
Shortly after filing his complaint in January 2021, Hernandez resigned his House seat after the Conduct Committee recommended his expulsion for the harassment complaints the women lodged against him. His resigned before a vote of the full House, which would have been required to expel him.
For his part, Hernandez has expressed great frustration at how long Healy’s investigation of his complaint took and at her findings. He tells WW via text message that he plans to testify at the Conduct Committee hearing on Wednesday. “I will also have witnesses,” he says.
