Nebraska state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh (D) sat down in front of a panel of 10 of her fellow colleagues on Thursday afternoon and asked them to hold a Republican senator accountable for sexually harassing her on the legislature floor last week.
The panel is tasked with deciding whether to censure their colleague state Sen. Steve Halloran (R) after he repeatedly inserted Cavanaugh’s name into a violent account of rape on the legislature floor. Halloran read the passage, taken from the bestselling memoir “Lucky” by Alice Sebold, during a debate last week over a bill that seeks to hold librarians and teachers criminally responsible for providing obscene materials to students.
“The events that happened on Monday evening demand forceful condemnation of Sen. Halloran’s actions, which were profoundly offensive and fundamentally disrespectful to this institution and its members,” Cavanaugh told the executive board committee, composed of nine men and one woman, which will decide whether or not to adopt the censure motion.
In the most egregious part of Halloran’s reading, he added “Sen. Cavanaugh” after a line where the rapist demands oral sex. Halloran apologized in a floor statement a day later, claiming he was simply trying to get her attention because he did not believe she was listening. He also said that, on first reference, he was referring to Cavanaugh’s brother, state Sen. John Cavanaugh (D), who also serves in the legislature.
“In the middle of that reading, it was clear to me that some people were not paying attention so I called their names out and I shouldn’t have,” Halloran said in his apology. “It was a mistake to do that.”
The experience described in the video below may be triggering to some viewers.
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