So much for #metoo
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Kweisi Mfume Wins Maryland Seat in Congress
Democrat Kweisi Mfume easily won a special election Tuesday to finish the term of the late Elijah Cummings, retaking a Maryland congressional seat he held for five terms before leaving to lead the NAACP.
Mfume defeated Republican Kimberly Klacik in the heavily Democratic 7th Congressional District, capping a race dramatically reshaped by the coronavirus. After winning what was largely a mail-in election, Mfume told supporters many people are "struggling at this hour to fight off the terrible disease of the coronavirus."
"To them, to their families and to the families of so many others who have lost lives prematurely to this disease, I want all of you to know that from day one, all of my attention, all of my energy and all of my focus in the United States Congress will be on using science, data and common sense to help get our nation through this dark hour in our history," Mfume said.
But the campaign also brought an allegation of sexual harassment made against Mfume nearly two decades ago back into the spotlight.
Mfume left Congress to serve as the president of the NAACP, and while in the position, he dated one staffer and another alleged she had been sexually harassed by him and was passed over for a promotion after she rejected him, according to reports from the Baltimore Sun. She then threatened to sue the organization and the NAACP paid her $100,000 in 2004 to avoid the lawsuit. Mfume, who has denied the harassment allegation, then left the organization that year.
Mfume’s case is a complicated, nuanced one. He has admitted that, while he was president of the NAACP, he dated a subordinate, and he has called it a “boneheaded” thing to do. During a recent interview with BuzzFeed News, Mfume said the relationship lasted for six months and that the pair then mutually agreed to end it.
The Washington Post reported in 2005 that a woman had said Mfume had sexually harassed her and that he had “touched her on the hip,” something Marcia E. Goodman, a lawyer hired by the NAACP to assess the claims at the time, said amounted to a “he said, she said.”
No other details of the woman’s complaint have been made public. But, Goodman wrote in a memo obtained by the Post, “the impression [was] created that a woman must provide sexual favors to Mr. Mfume or his associates in order to receive favorable treatment in the workplace.”
The woman asked for $140,000, according to the Post, and settled for $100,000. She and her lawyer have declined to discuss the case with any outlet since the settlement.
