‘Spin the bottle’ and a kegerator: #MeToo movement lawmaker faces new sexual misconduct allegations
It always confuses me that people like her exist.
Why go into detail about your sex life with coworkers?
Geez.
SAN FRANCISCO — New misconduct allegations have been leveled against California Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia — the high-profile #MeToo movement activist under investigation herself for alleged sexual harassment — including a claim that Garcia urged staffers to play “spin the bottle” after a political fundraiser.
David John Kernick has filed a formal complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing claiming he was dismissed from his job in Garcia’s district office for questioning the propriety of asking staffers to play the game.
Kernick, 38, who worked for the assemblywoman for five months in 2014, described to POLITICO an evening of heavy drinking in which Garcia ended up sitting on a hotel room floor with about half-dozen people — including her staffers and at least one male friend — and prompted them to play a game that results in participants kissing each other.
“It was definitely uncomfortable,’’ said Kernick, adding that the assemblywoman’s suggestion was met with discomfort and then ignored. “But I realized it’s different for a man than for a woman. … You know it’s inappropriate, but at the same time you may wonder, ‘How many women do you work for that act like that?’ You think … ’Maybe she’s just really cool.’’’
“It muddies the waters,” he said.
Last week, prior to filing his complaint, Kernick and three other ex-staffers issued an open letter to Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon charging that Garcia, a powerful Democratic lawmaker who until recently headed the legislative Women’s Caucus, presided over a “toxic" workplace where activities included regular heavy drinking with staffers, sexually charged meetings and raunchy conversations highlighting intimate details of her sex life.
“It was a power imbalance,’’ one staffer said in an interview last week. “You’re telling me, ‘We’re going to go to a happy hour,’ and I don’t want to do that. It was something that was central — ‘We’re going to go out’ … and I was, ‘I don’t want to hang out with you, I want to go home.’”
The ex-staffer said employees worried about retribution from the boss if they didn’t go along, and that signing the public letter was “the opportunity to be heard” about an unhealthy workplace that often included “vulgar” conversations related to Garcia’s personal sexual experiences.
“It wasn’t a two-way street. It was usually just us listening,’’ she said. “I thought it was weird. It came off as sort of bragging.”
In addition to being asked to attend many late-night events with the assemblywoman at which alcohol flowed freely, the second staffer said there would be “team-building things like mimosas” in the office during work hours.
A Sacramento-based lobbyist who spoke to POLITICO corroborated their accounts of a free-wheeling and alcohol-fueled workplace.
The industry lobbyist said he was surprised last year when, during a late-morning policy meeting in Garcia’s Capitol office, the assemblywoman poured beer from a kegerator — a refrigerator with a beer tap on top — located in her office.
She offered the brew in red Solo cups to the group of lobbyists, even though it was “sometime between 11 a.m. and noon ... a little early,’’ the lobbyist said.
Kernick said he’s coming forward to raise concerns about a woman whom he says has become an icon of the #MeToo movement, but also to prove that in Sacramento, “powerful women can act the same way as powerful men.”
The assemblywoman has been shielded from criticism, Kernick said, while overseeing an office where treatment was often “malevolent," and in which alcohol use fueled hostility and mistreatment of staffers. A former Marine, he believes he was dismissed from the office because, as an older, more experienced staffer, he wasn’t as malleable and accepting as younger staffers were of the stressful, and often “malicious,” behavior within the office.
It always confuses me that people like her exist.
Why go into detail about your sex life with coworkers?
Geez.
