Stan Rosenberg’s swan song was supposed to be a happy, laudatory event.
For nearly 40 years in the state Legislature, first as a House member and then for a quarter-century as a senator, Rosenberg has built and deserved a stellar reputation as an honorable politician, a forward-thinking policy wonk and an effective advocate for his constituents in Hampshire and Franklin counties.
Just this past week, for example, leaders of the regional opioid task force were banking on Rosenberg, and Franklin County’s other state lawmakers, to find more money in the state budget to fight addiction and aid recovery in the region. This was natural because Rosenberg has always been there for Franklin County — whether just showing up at a Schell Bridge meeting in Northfield, gathering regularly with Franklin County merchants or doing the budget crunching and political behind-the-scenes work in a Boston-centric Legislature to ensure our small, rural towns and school districts get their fair share of the state’s attention and funding.
But the swan song that should have been a tribute has instead turned sour with release this week of a report that concluded Rosenberg had violated the trust placed in him as Senate president by inaction concerning his husband, Bryon Hefner, who is accused of sexual harassment and assault in Rosenberg’s Beacon Hill world and of interfering in Senate business.
Wednesday, five months after Rosenberg stepped down from the presidency over allegations against his husband, the Senate Ethics Committee’s investigation concluded that while Rosenberg may not have violated any formal rules, his failure to intervene in his husband’s at-times outrageous behavior had “destructive consequences” for the Senate.
Hefner reportedly tried to wield his husband’s influence with staffers and those doing business before the Legislature. And he is accused of sexual harassment and assault in that workplace.
It’s disappointing that Rosenberg’s swan song was Thursday’s resignation announcement, which said in part that the investigation “found no conduct by me that violated Senate rules or state ethics law, no evidence that Bryon influenced my actions as Senate president, and no knowledge on my part of any alleged sexual advances, assaults or attempts by Bryon to influence other senators or staff.
“The report does, however, summarize statements from witnesses alleging that Bryon engaged in actions that harmed them and others, and it finds fault with my not having done more to control Bryon’s access to information and to the people who worked in and around the Senate.”
Given all that’s in the Ethics Committee report, we feel that Rosenberg did the right thing Thursday, although it will be a blow to the region’s political clout in Boston. There may be practical political reasons for his stepping down, as he seems to have lost the trust and support of his peers who were poised to strip him of much of his influence and power in the Senate. Some supporters might assert that he was being driven out by political foes taking advantage of circumstances. But the damage looks self-inflicted.
Rosenberg provided Hefner with “largely unfettered access to Senate information and to the people who worked in, or had business before, the Senate,” the report says.
In disturbing detail, the Ethics Committee report describes how Hefner injected himself into Senate business. He posed as Rosenberg in messages to staff and to an elected official. He repeatedly engaged in sexual misconduct against Senate staffers. And he allegedly directed “racial epithets” toward a Senate aide, who then reported it directly to Rosenberg.
The investigators determined that Rosenberg wasn’t directly responsible for the alleged misdeeds of Hefner, but showed poor judgment and leadership. There was ample evidence in the report of Rosenberg’s failure to address the serious problem that was Hefner.
During 11 hours of interviews with investigators, Rosenberg insisted that he handled Hefner’s offensive conduct as best he could, and said that Hefner did not wield any undue influence over Senate business.
When these allegations of Hefner’s troubling misconduct on Beacon Hill surfaced as Rosenberg was about to become Senate president, the Amherst Democrat pledged to erect a “firewall” between his personal and private lives to dispel concerns Hefner would wield inappropriate influence. We took that to mean Hefner would be banished from Beacon Hill, that he would not interfere in staffers, senators or others doing business with them. But that didn’t happen, according to the report.
To Rosenberg’s credit, investigators said that they found no direct or circumstantial evidence that Hefner swayed Rosenberg’s official actions.
Yet, the report found Rosenberg undermined the Senate’s anti-harassment policy by not reining in his spouse. Rosenberg’s lawyer argued to the Ethics Committee that the Senate’s harassment policies didn’t apply to senators. The finding drew a stinging rebuke from the committee, which wrote: “Senator Rosenberg claims that he was not bound by the policies … That is not leadership.”
Rosenberg has credited Hefner with helping him come out as a gay man and during his bout with cancer. Rosenberg told the Ethics Committee investigators he felt deeply indebted to Hefner. Rosenberg told the investigators that to fully wall off Hefner from his work would have led to “two untenable choices — to divorce Hefner or quit his job.”
Sadly, that choice has now been made for him.