“This has been an open secret for eight years.”

That’s the kicker quote in Lola Duffort’s excellent story for Vermont Public, cataloguing the various ways that former state representative Bob Hooper was a serial creep toward women since at least 2018, including his entire seven-year career in the Vermont House. As I read it, the same thought kept barging to the front of my mind: How in the Hell did it go on for so long?

This is, after all, a chamber whose leadership promises “zero tolerance for sexual harassment, discrimination, or any hostile behavior.” This is a chamber that ranks near the top in terms of female representation. The Speaker of the House has been a woman (Mitzi Johnson, Jill Krowinski) since 2017. In the current biennium, House Democratic caucus leadership consists of seven women and no men.

And yet Bob Hooper’s creeptastic ways were allowed to continue year after year.

I’ve written before, time after time, that the primary goals of the Legislature’s internal policing mechanisms are not punishing the guilty or ensuring a safe work environment, but rather avoiding embarrassment and protecting offenders as much as possible.

It ain’t right, and leadership ought to be ashamed of itself for repeatedly enabling Hooper’s inappropriate, touchy-feely ways.

Duffort’s piece is a necessary corrective to the coverage of Hooper’s resignation earlier this week, which gave substantial weight to his own statements. Even now, he just doesn’t get it. He feels no remorse. He blames his accusers (who are either making it all up or blowing it out of proportion), the Legislature’s ethics process, and a Statehouse culture that no longer allows Boys To Be Boys.

And since he was the one speaking his mind on the House floor and giving interviews, his account got a lot of coverage. Meanwhile, the House’s sexual harassment process bars public disclosure of complaints and official actions.

Well, Duffort was the first to reveal some details of Hooper’s misdeeds, and after her initial account she kept on digging. She got a bunch of women to speak openly about Hooper. If we had to rely on the official record, we would not know any of what she reported. By her account, there’s still a lot we don’t know. But her reporting makes clear what the House Sexual Assault Prevention (cough) Panel meant when it reportedly described Hooper’s “pattern of behavior.”

Which goes at least all the way back to 2018, when House candidate Hooper apparently made unwanted contact — on two separate occasions — with Kate Lapp, who’s held various positions in Democratic and political circles for years. (Lapp provided the quote at the beginning of this post.) Hooper labeled Lapp’s account “a fabrication” only to later backtrack, vaguely and without completely dispensing with victim-blaming.

Sen. Becca White, a state rep-elect in 2018, was in an orientation session with other House rookies when she had an unwanted encounter with Hooper that was witnessed by then-speaker Mitzi Johnson. (White didn’t file a complaint because she didn’t want to be branded as One Of Them.)

Johnson spoke with White and Hooper at the time — and recalls two other occasions where she had to Have A Word with Hooper about crossing lines. Which kinda seems like a lot for a body committed to “zero tolerance.”

Thanks to Duffort, we now know that the 2022 “informal complaint” against Hooper was filed by state Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, who was a state representative at the time and served on the same committee as Hooper. She reported two separate instances of inappropriate conduct. Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, who chaired the committee at the time, told Duffort that Vyhovsky “was not the first young woman to have complained to her about Hooper.” Copeland Hanzas urged Vyhovsky to file a formal complaint; instead, she took the informal route. It resulted in the chair of the Sexual Assault Prevention Panel Having A Word with Hooper, which did nothing to change his behavior or his own self-perception.

I must emphasize that until last year, all the women affected by Hooper’s behavior didn’t feel safe going through the House’s formal complaint process. Which, in itself, should be ample reason to rethink the process from stem to stern.

It’s clear that Hooper has a long and awful history as a repeat offender, a person who doesn’t recognize the bounds of correct workplace behavior. (Far longer and much awfuler than, say, David Zuckerman’s history, but I guess Hooper was a loyal Democrat and Zuckerman a dirty Prog.) And yet it took the better part of a decade for Hooper to face any consequences.

It’s clear that the House’s procedures for handling sexual harassment are completely inadequate and in need of an overhaul. Will leadership do anything about it? I’d be surprised, honestly. If we didn’t learn any lessons from the Norm McAllister scandal, we’re not going to learn anything from Hooper’s case. And the House will continue to fail on its commitment to being a safe workspace for women.