Taxpayers footed the bill for more than half a million dollars in sexual harassment settlements involving members of the House, according to estimates released Thursday by the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights. 

While the document, which totals seven pages, does not contain any bombshell revelations, it offers a snapshot of past settlements as Congress grapples with a fresh wave of misconduct allegations and considers how to crack down on bad behavior in its ranks.

It comes in response to a resolution adopted by the House seeking to dislodge more data on what some members have dubbed the “slush fund.” While a law enacted in the MeToo era now requires lawmakers to shell out their own money for harassment settlements and mandates public disclosure of data, that wasn’t the case before 2018.

Led by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., the resolution adopted in June required both the OCWR and the House Ethics Committee to publicly disclose a “single consolidated list” of House members who were the subjects of sexual harassment investigations “if it resulted in a payment of taxpayer funds.”  

In July, the Ethics Committee issued a terse statement saying it is “dedicated to providing transparency for the American public on sexual misconduct matters” but did not have the information Massie sought. 

The disclosure from OCWR, dated Aug. 31 but made publicly available on Thursday, cites seven lawmakers by name who were involved in sexual harassment payouts. Six of those were previously named publicly in a release by Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., after she led an effort in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to subpoena the information. 

The seventh, the late Rep. Alcee Hastings, was investigated by the Ethics Committee during his time in Congress after a staffer for the Helsinki Commission alleged unwanted advances. While the committee ultimately closed the matter, the Treasury Department paid out $220,000 to settle a lawsuit related to the allegations in 2014.

Hastings told Roll Call in 2017 that he had not been aware of the settlement and was “outraged” by it.  

All told, the settlements tied to the seven members named by OCWR total more than $550,000. But Executive Director Martin J. Crane described several caveats in a letter to House leaders. 

The amounts include not only direct payments, but the estimated value of things like promotions or periods of administrative leave, he wrote. And the records are incomplete, since the office once had a “retention policy” in place that required destruction of records 10 years after a case was fully closed. Under that policy, 32 case records dating between 1996 and 2005 were destroyed, according to Crane.

The document posted on the OCWR’s website Thursday is partially redacted, but an unredacted version is available for viewing in the Legislative Resource Center overseen by the House clerk. 

It also includes an aggregate estimate of taxpayer funds spent in connection with allegations of sexual harassment made against House employees. That amount is a little over $67,000.

As he spearheaded the resolution in June, Massie said while news reporting and subpoenas had already surfaced information about what he calls the “slush fund,” he believed he was casting a wider net and hoped to learn something new. “You shouldn’t have to go get a subpoena through a committee to go find this,” he said at the time. Massie did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The release of the document comes as the House faces a larger reckoning over lawmakers’ behavior towards staff after two representatives — Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., and Tony Gonzales, R-Texas — resigned earlier this year over sexual misconduct allegations. Some members have vowed to push for more transparency and accountability in the aftermath.