A new bill would keep House sexual harassers from lobbyist jobs until they've paid back their bills

You know you are something special in American politics when Congress threatens to pass a bill addressing your own particular scandal, under your own particular name. Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas resigned last year as the House Ethics Committee was investigating sexual harassment claims lodged against him by an aide, and after it was revealed that Congress had turned to taxpayers, not Farenthold, to pay the $84,000 settlement to his former aide. It capped a colorful, short career involving nasty online comments, an indecent domain name registered by Farenthold, and, of course, "ducky pajamas."

Farenthold did not fall far, though. After resigning from Congress, he quickly scored a new $160,000 per year gig lobbying the Congress he just left. (And then lost it again, after public outrage.) What he didn't do, and what he refused to do, is repay taxpayers the $84,000 we the people shelled out due to his actions.

That brings us to today. Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, a Republican, plans to introduce the Bad Lawmakers Accountability and Key Emends ("BLAKE" Act. Setting aside the continued tragedy of lawmakers coming up with too-clever names for their bills, the BLAKE Act bars former House members from lobbying Congress if they have not repaid taxpayers for funds used to settle sexual harassment complaints against them. It cannot force any lawmaker to actually repay that money; all it can do is cut off a thus-disgraced former congresscritter from the lucrative new job of glad-handing his old House pals on behalf of some new employer.

Why Farenthold's actual behavior was not sufficient to get him permanently booted from the building is another question. One would think a congressman who resigned in disgrace would not find many open doors on Capitol Hill, and the problem would solve itself. Apparently, though, if these things aren't codified into law, disgraced House ex-compatriots can scuttle right back in through the woodwork.