Early Monday morning, the Indianapolis Star reported that since 2009, three women have accused Indiana Senate Minority Leader Greg Taylor of sexual harassment, exposing what one of them described as “the bro subculture prevalent at the Indiana Statehouse.”
One accuser described how, after she asked Taylor if he would write her a letter of recommendation for a job at a nonprofit at which he sat on the board, he relentlessly “pursued” her for the rest of her internship. She spent the summer fending off constant calls and invitations for drinks, and consistently rejected his indirect sexual advances.
He never wrote her a letter.
Another woman detailed how he cornered her in 2009 and pinned her against a door. The incident was witnessed by another staffer who reported it to the then-Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson. As the accuser recalls, Simpson’s response was, “Boys will be boys.”
Continuing the pattern, hours after the story broke his peers in the Democratic caucus voted to reelect Taylor as Senate Minority Leader in the General Assembly. Taylor accepted the Democratic caucus’ nomination to continue serving as Senate Minority Leader despite the public allegations of his reprehensible behavior. He offered only this pallid, written statement:
“As an elected official, I am responsible for maintaining high professionalism and respecting the boundaries of all I engage with. While this has always been my goal, there have been times when I may have blurred the lines and behaved in a manner that potentially made my colleagues or those who witnessed my actions uncomfortable. While it was never my intent to cause harm, I acknowledge that I have fallen short, and for this, I apologize.”
Elected officials, on paper, have systems for people to report workplace harassment. However, it is clear that these systems fail to protect those willing to come forward, and that when reports are made, no one is held accountable. Exposé after exposé of serial abuse by elected officials and their colleagues at the state and local level have made it apparent that we cannot rely on either Democrats or Republicans to fight for legal rights or economic protections for workers. The systems currently in place are meant to do nothing but provide a veneer of legitimacy that allows them to dismiss sexist and abusive behavior within their parties.
A pattern of abuse unveils a system that protects abusers
Over and over, the Democrats have demonstrated that they are incapable of establishing adequate systems to protect women in government institutions. In 2018, former Attorney General Curtis Hill faced accusations of groping four women at a party, but the only consequence was a thirty-day suspension of his law license. The people of Indianapolis have repeatedly demanded Mayor Joe Hogsett’s resignation for his failure to address multiple reports of sexual harassment involving his campaign manager, Thomas Cook. Hogsett only spoke about the issue when it was brought to the public’s attention by three women in his administration who broke their silence publicly in July. The people’s demand for Hogsett’s resignation has gone unanswered.
Now that the story is in the press, the Democratic-majority City-County Council has hired an anti-labor union law firm—Fisher Phillips—to investigate Hogsett’s administration and recommend potential consequences for Mayor Hogsett. The firm will be paid $495 an hour for two associates and $295 an hour for the paralegal work using public funds. Even this flimsy pretense at actual accountability has taken over four months to get off the ground, and much of the scrutiny has fallen off the public’s radar following the November presidential elections.
Fisher Phillips has completed the first phase of their investigation, which consisted of an overview of federal, state, and local laws on workplace harassment. They explained that individuals must report workplace harassment issues to the agency’s Human Resources department before escalating them further—which may offer the Council an easy way to dismiss some of the allegations, regardless of their truth. The second phase will investigate sexual harassment allegations within the Hogsett administration, with Fisher Phillips scheduled to present its findings on January 29, 2025, over five months after local media uncovered the allegations. The state consistently employs the “investigation” tactic to stall public scrutiny and wait to absolve the “misconduct” of their party members.
Democrats do not fight for the working class
The Indiana Democratic Party, the political machine to get politicians elected across the state, makes statements on these issues not to condemn the actions, but to absolve themselves of wrongdoing. They endorse the candidates when it is convenient for them to throw their weight behind them but refuse to claim any responsibility for helping predators uphold their power when these issues come to light.
The Democratic and Republican parties also have regular sexual harassment scandals at the federal level—including, of course, President-elect Donald Trump. During his first presidential campaign, audio recordings of Trump surfaced in which he talked about doing whatever he wanted to women, including grabbing them inappropriately and without permission.
Sexual misconduct and harassment reaches as high as the Supreme Court, where the Justices have lifetime appointments. Anita Hill came forward during the 1991 confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court, describing incidents of sexual harassment that occurred while he was her supervisor. Recently, investigators discovered that Thomas accepted bribes from billionaires–receiving lavish gifts in exchange for political favors.
Thomas’ fellow Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh—a notorious Trump appointee—has also been the subject of multiple allegations of sexual assault that surfaced during his confirmation hearings, dating back to his time as a Yale law student in the 1980s. Despite public scrutiny 30 years apart, both men secured lifetime appointments to the Supreme Court.
As Trump’s inauguration approaches, working people face a critical choice: accept politicians who remain unaccountable to us or fight for a government led by and for working people, committed to addressing our needs. We need a government that acts decisively, not one that wastes time on hollow policies, committees, and “accountability processes” that fail to protect working women over and over again.
The PSL calls for the liberation of women
The Party for Socialism and Liberation does not believe that either the Democratic or Republican parties can be reformed. The people need and deserve a political party that is genuinely fighting for women’s rights and is composed of visible leaders from our communities. Governance should not serve as a platform to push the agenda of a select few but instead focus on advancing working-class interests like housing, healthcare, education, and an end to imperialist violence worldwide. Legislators must represent the people with the understanding that they can and will be held accountable, including being removed from office, at any moment.
The Program of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which describes what a socialist government of poor and working people would set out to do, stipulates that “sexism and other forms of male chauvinism and oppression of women will be eliminated as an immediate task, recognizing that this goal will not be achieved automatically or by decree. It will be prohibited to advocate any form of sexism or male chauvinism.”
The Program goes on to call for a guarantee of “the right of women workers to receive the same pay, benefits, and treatment as their male counterparts,” the absolute right to contraception, abortion services, high-quality pre-and post-natal health care, and child care; and an end to all forms of discrimination against anyone based on their sexual orientation or gender expression.
The Indianapolis branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation stands with the brave women who came forward, and we call for Senator Greg Taylor and Mayor Joe Hogsett resign immediately!