A Democratic attorney working for the state of Kansas is under fire today after claims that he sexually harassed Kansas Department of Revenue employees were made public, the Topeka Capital-Journal reports. The paper ignores a common thread among most of allegations of sexual misconduct in the Capitol. Most of the named alleged perpetrators are Democrats.
Jerome Gorman served as the elected Wyandotte County District Attorney for 35 years. He began working as a tax attorney for the Kansas Department of Revenue. Readers of the Topeka Capital-Journal don’t learn of Gorman’s 35-year affiliation with the Democratic Party until paragraph 28. The DA gig is an elected position. Gorman left that post after the Democratic primary last year.
“Gorman was the Wyandotte County district attorney until hired nearly one year ago into the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback,” paragraph 3 reads.
What the paper leaves out, however, is a common thread among the sexual harassment stories leaking out of Topeka. The named alleged perpetrators of sexual harassment and those accused of looking the other way are all Democrats. Gorman is a Democrat. Though former Democratic staff Abbie Hodgson didn’t name alleged perpetrators, but she told Kansas City Star that Democratic lawmakers looked the other way when she told them she and legislative interns were harassed by Democratic legislators.
A deputy commissioner at the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services, Brandt Haehn, was suspended over allegations that he offered a woman a job if she agreed to have sex with him every few days. He no longer works for the state. He was a registered Democrat, a piece of public information left out of the Cap-J’s story on Haehn.
Gorman is a not a classified state employee nor is he a political appointee like cabinet secretaries are. His employment status means the administration may have had input in his hiring. Gorman’s employment is at will. The investigation into allegations against Gorman are ongoing.