Rep. Steven Halloran inserted lawmaker's name while reading rape scene in obscenity debate

A Nebraska lawmaker is being widely condemned on both sides of the political aisle for inserting the name of a female colleague while reading a book passage depicting a rape scene while debating about keeping obscenity out of K-12 schools.

During a floor debate, State Sen. Steve Halloran read a graphic excerpt from the book, "Lucky" by Alice Sebold, which describes in graphic detail a rape scene the author survived in college and said aloud the name of "Senator Cavanaugh" at the end of sentences about the sexual assault. He did not specify which Cavanaugh and both Machaela and her brother, John Cavanaugh, serve in the Legislature.

The book also happens to be one of the most banned books in the nation during the 2021-22 school year, according to PEN America data.

Shortly after Halloran made controversial remarks, Senator Machaela Cavanaugh tearfully denounced her colleague at the microphone.

"You don't know anything about anyone else's life and I can tell you women in this body have been subject to sexual violence," Cavanaugh said. "I didn’t know you were capable of such cruelty."

Sen. Megan Hunt, an Independent, and Sen. Julie Slama, a Republican, called for Halloran's resignation later Monday night on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Honestly, I think Halloran should resign. How dare he even form his mouth to say the words 'Give me a blow job Senator Cavanaugh,'” Hunt wrote in a post on X. “He said that because he wanted to say it. It was beyond the pale. Pure aggression to read a rape scene out loud and put it like that. Broken brain.”

Slama, who is open about being a victim of sexual assault, told Halloran he should be "ashamed" and called for more mechanisms to address sexual harassment in the Legislature.

"This place is special because it's the one place in the state of Nebraska where you can get up and talk about raping a colleague and not have any professional consequences," Slama said. "We have to do better, we can't just let this go. We owe it to the little girls who are watching at home."

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Halloran apologized on the Senate floor Tuesday morning but defended reading the passage about sexual violence and acknowledged it was a "mistake" to reference his colleagues.

"I apologize for interjecting the senators' names in the middle of reading a transcription, transcribed testimony in a public hearing, in reference to a book that is in some schools, and in some schools, required reading," he said. "It was a hard thing to read. And no, I was not trivializing rape. I was reading from a book that’s required reading for some students. Should I have interjected the senators' names? No. Sometimes we do things on the floor in the midst of making a statement that we shouldn’t have done."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Steven Halloran used colleague 'Cavanaugh' name in rape scene reading