DE House Ethics Committee Dismisses Ethics Compliant Against Rep. Gerald Brady
The House Ethics Committee announced Monday that it has dismissed an ethics complaint filed against Rep. Gerald Brady.
The complaint, filed last month, called into question an email Rep. Brady sent using his state email that used racist and sexist terms to discuss human trafficking. The email was publicized through the media and condemned by numerous officials and various groups.
Under House Ethics Rules (HR 4), which all 41 members vote on at the beginning of each General Assembly, complaints, investigations and the information received by the committee are initially confidential. Once the committee determines that a complaint is in order, an initial review is conducted to determine whether the allegation constitutes a violation of a Rule of Legislative Conduct or if the complaint merits further inquiry.
In its dismissal issued Monday, the Ethics Committee unanimously determined that no laws were violated, and that Rep. Brady’s remarks are protected under the First Amendment, which guarantees the right of free speech.
The committee’s report included research for precedent in Delaware, the U.S. House of Representatives and other states. Reprimands and punitive measures taken against elected officials are extremely rare, and have been almost universally for breaking the law, sexual misconduct, or misusing the elected office for personal gain.
None of those cases involved an elected official’s speech in private communications.
The United States Supreme Court has weighed in previously on issues involving elected officials and their First Amendment rights. In Bond v. Floyd (1966), the court considered the case of a congressman excluded by the Georgia House from taking his seat because of statements he had made regarding the Vietnam War. The Court found that the State had violated the representative’s First Amendment rights, stating “[t]he manifest function of the First Amendment in a representative government requires that legislators be given the widest latitude to express their views on policy” and that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”
House Majority Leader Valerie Longhurst, who chairs the Ethics Committee, said that while Rep. Brady’s comments were reprehensible, case law regarding elected officials’ speech is clear.
“Rep. Brady’s remarks were racist, sexist and should never be tolerated. That’s why House Leadership immediately condemned them and instructed him to take several steps to address the damage his words caused,” said Rep. Longhurst. “But while we reject his comments, we have to separate our moral outrage from our duty to follow the law. We must acknowledge a very bedrock principle of our country: unpopular speech, even despicable language like this, is still protected under the Constitution.
“While we condemn Rep. Brady’s remarks, the committee determined that we have no ground to regulate or punish an elected official’s speech. Ultimately, the decision of whether he should continue to serve in the House is the responsibility of the constituents he represents.”
The U.S. Supreme Court echoed that position in Powell v. McCormack (1969), in which it stated that a “fundamental principle of our representative democracy is that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.”
House Ethics Rules, which members unanimously approved in January, outline a process for how complaints and investigations are handled by the committee. Under these rules, Ethics Committee investigations and the information received by the committee are confidential unless and until the committee reports to the full House that it has determined that the complaint fails to allege facts that constitute a violation of the Rule of Legislative Conduct, or it determines that the allegation of a violation in the complaint merits further inquiry.
If the Ethics Committee determines that the complaint should be dismissed because the facts in the complaint do not constitute a violation of the rules, then the committee must submit a report to the House containing the decision and the reasons for the decision. The report that is submitted to the House will be made public, as it was Monday.
“While I understand that some are frustrated by the perceived secrecy of the Ethics Committee process, I want to stress that we closely followed the rules that all House members approved earlier this year, which have existed for decades,” said Rep. Longhurst. “These rules ensure that complaints are given their due consideration and that a full accounting of the committee’s actions are made public.”
The report will be formally delivered to the House when the chamber is next in session.
Rep. Brady previously has announced that he will not seek re-election next year.Â
