http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
Here's some info:The former communications director of the Iowa Senate Republican Caucus filed a lawsuit against the caucus on Thursday alleging that she was fired in 2013 after complaining about sexual harassment from some of her male colleagues that targeted female staffers.The lawsuit by the communications director, Kirsten Anderson of Des Moines, also alleges that state Sen. Joni Ernst (pictured above), now the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Iowa, and another state senator, Sandra Greiner, were witnesses to some of the inappropriate actions by the male colleagues, including that an unnamed male colleague showed her a picture on his computer of a naked woman. Anderson's lawsuit says Ernst and Greiner did not do anything while the behavior was going on.
Anderson was fired less than ten hours after writing a memo to her supervisors where she called attention to the alleged harassment, according to the Des Moines Register, which first reported the lawsuit on Thursday. - TPM, 10/16/14
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/...
By the way, this news just broke out:The defendants include the state of Iowa, the Iowa Senate, the Senate Republican Caucus, Senate Republican Leader Bill Dix, Senate Republican Staff Director Eric Johansen and Ed Failor, a top aide to Dix.The suit seeks a ruling that Anderson's firing was unfair and discriminatory and to award her back pay and benefits, plus compensatory damages. It also asks the court to require the defendants to provide training to stop sexual discrimination and require monitoring for three years to ensure employees are not treated unfairly based on sexual orientation or gender.
Many of the allegations had been reported previously in a May 2013 story in The Des Moines Register.
Anderson's lawsuit alleges that the Senate, and particularly the Republican Caucus, had an environment that permitted, if not encouraged, inappropriate and sexually discriminatory behavior.
"By way of just one example, Sen. Joni Ernst of Red Oak and Sen. Sandra Greiner of Keota witnessed sexual innuendo and inappropriate behavior exhibited by their male colleagues and did and said nothing while female staffers stood by unable to say anything," the suit says. The suit contains no other reference to Ernst or Greiner.
The suit says the evidence will demonstrate that Anderson and other women who worked in the Senate Republican Caucus experienced harassment and other discriminatory treatment on a regular basis. The suit alleges that Anderson and other women not only experienced such conduct regularly, but that she was punished after complaining about it, and was ultimately fired, even though Senate rules said she could only be fired for just cause.
The suit says that beginning in 2010, Anderson's work environment became more toxic when one senior analyst in the Republican staff office talked openly and negatively about women, referring to them often in the most derogatory and vile terms. The lawsuit does not identify that employee.
In 2011, the suit alleges, state Sen. Shawn Hamerlinck, R-DeWitt, who was defeated for re-election in 2012 , told Anderson she was "one of the boys" many times throughout the year. "Hamerlinck often talked about women's breasts, and also often discussed which lobbyists were bigger flirts with House members in front of Anderson on the Senate floor."
During the 2012 session, state Sen. Merlin Bartz, R-Grafton, who also lost a re-election bid that year, would make comments that Anderson's shoes were not "classy enough," and that he liked and disliked certain parts of her shoes, also commenting on which way he liked Anderson's hair, wavy or straight, the suit says. - Des Moines Register, 10/16/14
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Looks like the Republican meltdown is starting to happen. Click here to donate and get involved with Rep. Bruce Braley's (D. IA) campaign:Iowa Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst said she would support a federal bill that gives legal personhood rights to fetuses from the moment of fertilization, effectively wiping out legal abortion in the United States.
Ernst voted for a fetal personhood amendment in the Iowa State legislature in 2013, and she told the Sioux City Journal editorial board on Wednesday that she also would support a federal personhood measure if she were elected to the U.S. Senate.
"I will continue to stand by that. I am a pro-life candidate, and this has been shaped by my religious beliefs through the years," she said. "So I support that."
The amendment Ernst voted for in 2013 said the state must recognize and protect a person's right to life "at any stage of development." Similar personhood measures were rejected by voters in Mississippi and Colorado after legal experts and women's health advocates warned about the wide range of implications such a law could have. In addition to outlawing abortion without exceptions, a personhood bill could affect the legality of in vitro fertilization and some forms of birth control that anti-abortion groups believe work by preventing implantation of the fertilized egg, such as emergency contraception and the intrauterine device.
Democrats have been emphasizing their opponents' support for fetal personhood in the hope that it would turn off Independent voters. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a new ad hitting Ernst on her abortion stance the same day she came out in support of a federal personhood bill. - Huffington Post, 10/16/14
