Message regarding Tomorrow's Special Committee Meeting on Sexual Assault and Harassment
May 1, 2024
Fellow Democrats,
Last week, I announced the formation of a Special Committee on Sexual Assault and Harassment in the San Francisco Political Community. I am heartened by the support we have received from Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on the formation of this committee. I would also like to thank Member Michael Nguyen for recently accepting appointment to this Special Committee to work on these issues. The first meeting of the Special Committee will be this Thursday, May 2, 2024. You can find the agenda here.
People have asked me what the purpose and goals of the Special Committee are. Our purpose and goals are to understand the issue of sexual assault and harassment in our political community and to suggest changes to our policies to address the issue. We are mindful that the jurisdictional power of the Party is limited, though we hope to change the political culture with the actions we take here.
Let me make clear what the Special Committee is not – the Special Committee is not an adjudicative body. We will not be making judgments on the truth of any individual incident or accusation, nor will this be a forum for gossip, rumor, or slander.
My intention is that the work of the Special Committee occurs in four phases. The first phase is understand the scope and breadth of the problem of sexual assault and harassment in our community. Thursday’s meeting will be the beginning of that phase, though collecting this information may continue beyond Thursday.
The second phase will be researching best practices for making our political spaces safer and developing timely reporting procedures.
The third phase will be drafting a San Francisco Democratic Party Code of Conduct addressing these issues. We will seek comments both from the public and our chartered Democratic Clubs.
The fourth phase will be presenting a San Francisco Democratic Party Code of Conduct to the full membership of the DCCC and requiring all of our chartered Democratic Clubs to adopt it as part of the chartering and re-chartering process. The Special Committee’s goal will be to complete our work by August because all existing chartered Democratic Clubs will need to renew their charters in August, per our bylaws. All Democratic Clubs seeking chartering or re-chartering would be required to adopt this new Code of Conduct.
I want to emphasize that the Special Committee’s meeting on Thursday is intended to hold space for survivors to share their experiences in whatever way they are most comfortable. Some will be comfortable speaking in the Open Session. Some may only be comfortable sharing in the Closed Session. Still others may only want to provide a written comment via our online form. We have promulgated a set of Guidelines and Procedures to ensure that we are centering survivors in our work.
I will not permit this meeting to be a forum for political mud-slinging or partisan politics. Anyone disrespecting this process or the survivors that have joined us will be asked to leave.
We understand that during the course of this hearing there will be discussions of sensitive and painful topics and we are committed to providing a safe and respectful environment for all participants. For those reasons, we will have an advocate who is a licensed mental health clinician available throughout the duration of the hearing to assist survivors. We will also have an attorney from the Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic (CROC) to provide information regarding civil restraining orders and Marsy’s Law (Victims’ Bill of Rights). Handouts with additional resources will also be on hand, and survivors can also access a list of resources here.
We are humbly asking survivors to share their stories so that we can be better Democrats and provide a safe, secure, and welcoming place for political activity and expression. Members of the public are welcome to join to support this critically important work and provide allyship for survivors for the public portions of the meeting.
In solidarity,
Nancy