Pierce County lawmaker under fire a second time for conduct at state Legislature
An investigation into a Pierce County lawmaker found that she may have violated the Washington state House of Representatives respectful workplace policy after a complainant expressed several concerns about their work environment earlier this year, according to a report released Thursday.
House Chief Clerk Bernard Dean released the findings of a House investigation into Rep. Melanie Morgan, D-Parkland, to reporters via email.
The 55-page report outlines 21 allegations against Morgan, with a number of those allegations found to be substantiated or partially substantiated.
The report alleged that Morgan’s legislative assistant for the 2024 session was yelled at and mistreated and that Morgan was confrontational with the assistant, among other things. The assistant no longer works for Morgan.
“The complainant reported that her direction made them feel isolated,” the report notes, after Morgan allegedly told the new staffer to “trust no one” and to limit contact with other staffers in the statehouse building.
The independent investigation was conducted by Sound Workplace Investigations and is dated May 7. Investigators found that the lawmaker may have violated the House Respectful Workplace policy in some of the 21 instances alleged in the report.
According to the report, Morgan allegedly talked to the assistant “about trying to get two members of House staff fired for performance concerns,” which the report found could be intimidating.
“This conduct more likely than not results in a violation of House policy, particularly because there were repeated instances,” the investigator wrote.
Additionally, during the first month of the legislative session, the lawmaker allegedly referred to the assistant as “Starboy,” while also telling them that the only reason their colleagues accepted them was due to their “proximity to whiteness.”
Photos provided by Dean showed a whiteboard from Morgan’s office where she had written the words “Starboy” and “proximity to whiteness” earlier this year.
The investigator wrote in the report that the substantiated part of the allegation was based on the assistant’s race and “was unwelcome conduct that could contribute to a finding of a violation of the House Respectful Workplace Policy.”
The report outlined another incident where the assistant pushed back after Morgan allegedly told them they would be responsible for getting food for her during the session. When the assistant pushed back, the lawmaker told them, “Excuse me. You will do it anyway.”
When the assistant offered to pick up food for Morgan later in the session, the lawmaker allegedly said in a sarcastic tone, “You get to pick and choose? You didn’t work to get this seat.”
While the investigator did not find that the conversations violated the House policy, “this type of interaction could be intimidating, and these incidents could result in a policy violation if combined with other substantiated allegations,” they said.
In one allegation, the assistant also heard the lawmaker call another legislator “a little bitch” who “didn’t talk about being Mexican until they ran for office.” Another allegation by the assistant said that Morgan described another lawmaker to them as a bully who “drinks on the job.”
This is the second time the lawmaker’s conduct has come under scrutiny at the state Legislature.
In October 2022, Morgan was found to have “engaged in abusive and bullying conduct” and was found to have retaliated against a policy analyst on the Social Equity in Cannabis Task Force where Morgan served as chair, according to reporting from the Associated Press.
The lawmaker later appealed that report but Chief Clerk Dean told McClatchy in an email that the “appeal was not successful.”
“The House Executive Rules Committee upheld the findings of the report back in February 2023,” Dean said.
Morgan did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Morgan’s attorney who represented her in the 2022 investigation.
