I found this tidbit on Chad Dotson's Commonwealth Conservative yesterday. Chad tells his readers he is passing it along "without comment." That's probably because the facts, taken by themselves, are pretty damaging.
A few things to note:
1. Most importantly, this is OLD NEWS. The news article and order that Chad links to are from 2002. This thing has been hanging out there for three years. Why is it just now getting traction? Is there something that happened after the fact that we don't know about.
2. Legal scholar that I am, I actually read the court order that Chad linked to. According to the court, this case presented a true-blue he-said/she-said situation. That means the jury just plain found the victim more credible than Porta.
3. Borda's involvement in the case does not appear to make him the actual harasser. Apparently his involvement stems from the fact that he, as this woman's supervisor, allowed the classic "hostile workplace environment" to flourish, took no measures to stop it, and actually retaliated against the plaintiff when she brought her concerns to his attention. For those of you who are really dense, that means he summarily fired her because she complained about feeling uncomfortable because other guys were hanging swimsuit calendars on their office walls and telling really nasty dirty jokes. These are things guys normally do, but most of us are smart enough to clean up our acts around the fairer sex.
Strangely enough, I find myself agreeing with Not Larry Sabato on this one. Borda can parse his role in this whole thing all he wants and it won't matter. If it is true that a jury of his peers found that his actions caused his employer, Georgetown University, to be liable to the plaintiff, nothing in the world will change the minds of most voters on that, except maybe if an appellate court vacates or reverses the verdict.
I should add that it is pretty durn difficult these days to get a sexual harassment case to trial, then get a majority of the jury to side with the plaintiff, and then get the court to uphold the verdict without doing something screwy. The real question is, why hasn't this been used by the GOP to tank Borda's campaign by now? I've got a GOP mole friend who tells me the reason is simple: Michele McQuigg is "annoying" and the GOP really doesn't care whether she's re-elected or not. If true, I think that's terribly short-sighted of the GOP. McQuigg may be a tad shrill at times, and she does tend to act like she's perpetually been named Queen for the Day, but she has also become Queen of Campaigning. She works very hard and she's going to keep this seat, regardless whether the Borda thing sticks.
