My wife and I rent­ed three upstairs rooms in a big old house in White Hall, Vir­ginia, right after we mar­ried. The house was the orig­i­nal “White Hall,” we were told, where trav­el­ers board­ed in the old days on their way from Char­lottesville across the moun­tains. We loved that place. It sat on a ridge over­look­ing a pic­turesque field where Angus cat­tle grazed.

My wife was hang­ing our wash on the clothes­line in the side yard one after­noon when a fur­ry black cat with white mark­ings walked up to her and rubbed against her leg. She fol­lowed my wife up the out­side stair­well to our bal­cony entrance and came inside. She was so friend­ly and play­ful we fig­ured she was some­one else’s pet and turned her out that night, but she was wait­ing for us on the stairs the next day when we came home from work. We played with her and fed her, and she curled up and went to sleep at the foot of our bed.

The old house had a prob­lem with mice. I’d set traps but hadn’t caught any­thing. I awoke that night to a loud thump fol­lowed by crunch­ing sounds. I’ll spare you the descrip­tion of what I saw when I flicked on the light. Suf­fice it to say, we named the cat, Mousy; she moved in with us; and our prob­lem with mice went away.

We fell in love with her and the feel­ing seemed mutual.

Then one night we came home and she wasn’t there. We called her, but she didn’t come. I searched the neigh­bor­ing yards. No sign of her. “Field cats like to roam,” I told my wife. “She’ll come home soon.”

But she didn’t come home. Five nights into it, I was wor­ried sick and couldn’t sleep. I got up and went look­ing for her again. I searched all the same places. Still no sign of her. An old barn sat in the cow pas­ture at the bot­tom of the hill below our house. It seemed like a good place to hunt mice, and I hadn’t looked there before so I climbed the fence and head­ed down there.

The cat­tle stood togeth­er in the moon­light by a creek near the barn. As I walked down the slope, they began to bawl. Then a dozen of them broke away from the herd and charged up the hill toward me. I grew up in White Hall, and I’d walked through fields of cat­tle at night before with­out a prob­lem. A farmer lat­er told me, “Cat­tle can get skit­tish when a stranger pass­es through their field at night. Some­times they kick up a big ruckus and charge at him.”

“Wish I’d known that before I start­ed down that hill,” I said.

When the cat­tle came run­ning at me, I was too far from the fence to make it to safe­ty, so I shim­mied up the near­est tree, a locust tree, and watched the cat­tle run beneath me and on up to the top of the ridge, where they stomped around and con­tin­ued to bawl.

Anoth­er piece of infor­ma­tion that would have come in handy that night is that locust trees have big sharp thorns all along their trunks and branch­es. Scratch­es and welts striped my arms and hands, and they stung and bled.

Worse yet, the cat­tle had cut me off from the house. My only way out of the field was to out­run the cat­tle down to the barn, and from there, try to make it over a fence that bor­dered the road.

The thorns ripped me again as I climbed down, but I hit the ground run­ning. The cat­tle drummed down the hill after me. They were almost on me when I dove through the barn door and closed it behind me.

When I’d col­lect­ed my wits, such as they were, I searched the barn. No Mousy, of course.

The barn had a back door that faced the road. I snuck out the back and jumped the fence before the cat­tle real­ized I’d flown the coop.

Worn out and deject­ed, I walked up the road to Wyant’s Store and on over to our house. It was about mid­night when I got home.

“Guess who’s here!” my wife cried out when I opened the door.

Mousy lay on our bed. She’d come home while I was climb­ing the cursed locust tree. She’d lost weight and she was filthy but she wasn’t hurt. I looked like a walk­ing adver­tise­ment for iodine, but Mousy was back with us so I didn’t complain.

Cou­ple months lat­er, we came home on a cold rainy night to find Mousy on our wel­come mat, des­per­ate­ly try­ing to keep two new­born kit­tens warm. We gath­ered them up, rushed inside, and held them over the radi­a­tor. One had already frozen to death. The oth­er, Geral­dine, survived.

Short­ly after that, we bought a lit­tle house in Crozet and the four of us moved to our new home.

Sev­er­al months lat­er Mousy dis­ap­peared again. Same drill. A fran­tic search with no suc­cess. Days lat­er she came home filthy and bone-thin. Geral­dine pulled the same trick the next week. Two months after that, we were awash in kittens.

I was talk­ing to the guy next door one day about the mys­te­ri­ous dis­ap­pear­ances when he burst out laugh­ing. He’d grown up with cats. He told me what was going on. I was shocked.

“Mousy’s a slut,” I told my wife.

“What?”

“The times she dis­ap­pears,” I said. “She’s run­ning around doing it non-stop with every tom­cat she can find. Geraldine’s no better.”

We placed the kit­tens in good homes and the cycle repeat­ed. Our base­ment teemed with squirm­ing lit­tle balls of fur. Hav­ing sat­u­rat­ed Crozet with black cats with white mark­ings, we ran out of adop­tion can­di­dates. I final­ly broke down and emp­tied our bank account to spay Mousy, Geral­dine, and the oth­er three cats we couldn’t pay any­one to take.

They remained part of our fam­i­ly for the next two decades, and we adjust­ed our lives to accom­mo­date them, some­times with­out sen­si­ble regard for our future. We took them to Atlanta when I sum­mer-clerked for a cor­po­rate law firm there. The night we arrived, a senior part­ner helped us smug­gle our five cats into a no-pets motel, shuf­fling along car­ry­ing a cat under each arm, gig­gling like a lit­tle kid. I fig­ured they’d nev­er offer me a per­ma­nent job after that night, but for rea­sons I still don’t under­stand, our ardent devo­tion to our cats seemed to work in my favor.

The cats made big adjust­ments, too. They moved with us three thou­sand miles cross-coun­try back and forth three times, once by car, twice in the bel­lies of air­planes, until we final­ly set­tled down in LA, where Mousy, the Vir­ginia coun­try cat, and her brood seemed con­tent to live out their gold­en years in tin­sel town.

Mousy retained some of her down-home coun­try instincts, though. She still stalked mice in our garage, and one Christ­mas, she got a crazed look on her face, climbed to the top of our ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed tree, and brought it crash­ing down on the liv­ing room floor. Try­ing to sup­press a smile as I cleaned up the mess, I was secret­ly glad that some of the field cat we loved so much had sur­vived all the rad­i­cal changes.

Mousy and her off­spring left us one by one in the late 80’s. Lazy Bones, the last of her line, laid down beside our pool one breezy sum­mer day in 1990, stretched out, yawned, and went to sleep for good, bring­ing to a close Mousy’s long hap­py chap­ter in our lives.

The first of many cats and dogs who lived with my wife and me over our fifty years togeth­er, she was the only one who adopt­ed us, instead of the oth­er way around. She gave us the great gifts of love and loy­al­ty, except dur­ing those sex-crazed binges, for which we for­gave her. She’ll always hold a spe­cial place in our hearts.

Post Script: I wrote this piece for Mousy on Nation­al Cat’s Day. She was a great cat in all respects.

The recent avalanche of rev­e­la­tions about sex­u­al harass­ment in high-pro­file work­places include alle­ga­tions against the longest serv­ing mem­ber in the House, John Cony­ers. The press and the pub­lic seem stunned to learn that Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cony­ers con­fi­den­tial­ly set­tled a sex­u­al harass­ment claim brought by his long-term staffer, Mar­i­on Brown, using $27,000 of tax­pay­er mon­ey. Even mem­bers of Con­gress act sur­prised and out­raged when ques­tioned about this set­tle­ment. Yet the pro­ce­dures that led to this pay­out are no secret. They’re set forth in the pub­lic record in a statute iron­i­cal­ly enti­tled The Con­gres­sion­al Account­abil­i­ty Act; they’ve been in effect for two decades; and every mem­ber of the 1995 House and Sen­ate vot­ed in favor of them.

These pro­vi­sions escaped atten­tion when they were enact­ed in 1995 because Con­gress includ­ed them in a larg­er bill that looked like a big step toward major reform. Decades ear­li­er, Con­gress had passed a host of impor­tant employ­ment laws, includ­ing the Fair Labor Stan­dards Act of 1938, estab­lish­ing min­i­mum wage and over­time pay; the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964, pro­hibit­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion based on race, col­or, reli­gion, sex, or nation­al­i­ty; the Age Dis­crim­i­na­tion in Employ­ment Act of 1967; the Amer­i­cans With Dis­abil­i­ties Act of 1990; the Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Act of 1970, man­dat­ing safe­ty reg­u­la­tions in the work­place; and many oth­ers. These laws apply to all employ­ers with more than a hand­ful of employ­ees, except for one – Con­gress. Con­gress exempt­ed itself from their require­ments, leav­ing the 30,000 employ­ees of the leg­isla­tive branch unprotected. 

Dur­ing the 1994 Con­gres­sion­al cam­paigns, Repub­li­cans promised a new “Con­tract with Amer­i­ca.” One of the contract’s tenets was the nov­el idea that Con­gress ought to be sub­ject to the laws it impos­es on every­one else. The first law passed by the 104^th Con­gress was The Con­gres­sion­al Account­abil­i­ty Act. It pro­vid­ed that eleven fed­er­al employ­ment law statutes, includ­ing the laws men­tioned above, would apply to Con­gress from there on. The Act sailed through the House and Sen­ate with­out a sin­gle no vote. The press hailed it as a long over­due reform mea­sure, and mem­bers of Con­gress rushed to the micro­phones to take cred­it for final­ly mak­ing them­selves account­able for their behav­ior in the workplace. 

But there was a catch lurk­ing in the statute’s shad­ows that received almost no sun­light until a few weeks ago. Title IV of the Act allows an

employ­ee of the leg­isla­tive branch to file a com­plaint against a mem­ber of Con­gress only after com­plet­ing a one-sided review pro­ce­dure. For exam­ple, if a female staffer wants to take action against a mem­ber of Con­gress for sex­u­al­ly harass­ing her, she must first sign a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ment. Then she must sub­mit to coun­sel­ing for up to 30 days and attend medi­a­tion meet­ings for at least 30 more days. Only at the end of anoth­er 30 day cool­ing off peri­od after medi­a­tion can she final­ly file her for­mal com­plaint. She must then choose between demand­ing an inter­nal hear­ing before a hear­ing offi­cer or fil­ing a civ­il suit in fed­er­al court, either of which will take many months, if not years, to reach a con­clu­sion. While the pro­ceed­ings grind for­ward, she con­tin­ues to work with the mem­ber of Con­gress she has com­plained about unless she resigns or he fires her.

Best of all for mem­bers of Con­gress, the Act pro­hibits hear­ing offi­cers and courts from requir­ing them to pay a dime out of their own pock­ets for these claims. The U.S. Trea­sury pays all dam­age awards and set­tle­ments out of tax­pay­er funds. The Act also sweeps puni­tive dam­ages off the table. Puni­tive dam­age awards cre­ate a pow­er­ful incen­tive to pur­sue claims because they dri­ve the cost of set­tle­ments and total dam­ages much high­er, so nat­u­ral­ly Con­gress was care­ful to immu­nize itself from that risk.

The Act cre­at­ed the Office of Com­pli­ance (“OOC”) to admin­is­ter the com­plaint review pro­ce­dure. It con­sists of a five mem­ber Board of Direc­tors, which appoints an Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, who hires staff, medi­a­tors, and hear­ing offi­cers. The Act pro­vides that Congress’s lead­er­ship appoints the Board mem­bers, which gives employ­ees lit­tle con­fi­dence in the OOC’s will­ing­ness to bite the hand that feeds it. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jack­ie Speier recent­ly said the OOC “is a place that has real­ly been an enabler of sex­u­al harass­ment for these many years because of the way it’s con­struct­ed.” She esti­mates that eighty per­cent of the employ­ees who have spo­ken to her office about sex­u­al harass­ment have not filed claims for that reason.

Since 1996, the Trea­sury has paid out 17.2 mil­lion dol­lars for 268 claims under the Act. This includes claims for vio­la­tions of all eleven of the employ­ment laws cov­ered by the Act. Because of the secre­cy pro­vi­sions, we don’t know how many claims involved sex­u­al harass­ment. In fact, we know almost noth­ing about these claims because the House and Sen­ate Com­mit­tees that have the pow­er to require the OOC to give them the infor­ma­tion had nev­er asked for it in the twen­ty year life of the Act until a few weeks ago when Mar­i­on Brown’s claim against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Cony­ers hit the air­waves. If the OOC has respond­ed to that recent request, Con­gress has not yet seen fit to make the infor­ma­tion public.

Pen­e­trat­ing this veil of secre­cy to a small degree, the press uncov­ered details about two past sex­u­al harass­ment claims. Accord­ing to these

reports, the Trea­sury paid $100,000 in 2010 to two young male staffers to resolve sex­u­al harass­ment claims against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mas­sa of New York. He resigned under pres­sure short­ly after­wards. In 2014, the Trea­sury paid $84,000 to Lau­ren Greene, a staffer who worked for Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Far­en­thold of Texas, for a civ­il law­suit she filed against him for sex­u­al harass­ment. As of this writ­ing, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Far­en­thold has suc­cess­ful­ly resist­ed calls for his resignation.

On Novem­ber 15, Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Speier and Com­stock intro­duced the “Me Too” bill to amend the Act. The Me Too bill removes the require­ment that an employ­ee sign a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ment before mak­ing a claim, pro­tects the employ­ee from retal­i­a­tion for fil­ing a claim, offers legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the employ­ee, pro­vides that coun­sel­ing and medi­a­tion are vol­un­tary only, and requires a mem­ber of Con­gress to reim­burse the Trea­sury for dam­ages paid for per­son­al con­duct. As best I can tell, only forty-nine rep­re­sen­ta­tives have for­mal­ly endorsed it to date, but it’s ear­ly, and the tem­per­a­ture is ris­ing every day. 

When I was an attor­ney and lat­er an exec­u­tive, I han­dled a lot of sex­u­al harass­ment claims in the pri­vate sec­tor. Most exec­u­tives and man­agers I worked with were well-inten­tioned. With train­ing and edu­ca­tion, they tried hard to do the right thing. But there were some bad actors out there, peo­ple who behaved self­ish­ly and irre­spon­si­bly no mat­ter how much train­ing, coun­sel­ing, warn­ings, and dis­ci­pline they received. In my expe­ri­ence, the only way to deal with those peo­ple was to hit them with max­i­mum pun­ish­ment: ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ment, full pub­lic dis­clo­sure, big honk­ing finan­cial penalties. 

Con­gress under­stands this when it pass­es laws that apply to the rest of us, but its enthu­si­asm for pun­ish­ment seems to with­er when it points its guns at its own mem­bers. For twen­ty years it has pre­tend­ed to hold its mem­bers account­able while shield­ing them from the con­se­quences of their actions. Enough of the faux reform.

If Con­gress tru­ly wants to elim­i­nate the sex­u­al­ly hos­tile atmos­phere on the Hill, it should pub­lish a list of names of all of the accused, the details of the claims against them, and the amounts of mon­ey paid out on each one; the House and the Sen­ate should demand res­ig­na­tions from the preda­tors and expel those who refuse to resign; and Con­gress should pass the Me Too bill now.

That’s what should hap­pen and it should go down with bru­tal swift­ness, but with Congress’s track record on self-reg­u­la­tion, I’m not hold­ing my breath.