The Real Issue At Hand Isn't Sex, It's Power
As we draw our partisan conclusions about Al Franken, Roy Moore, John Conyers, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Blake Farendthold, let's not get wrapped up in left and right, republican and democrat, or any other political designation. The issues we should be talking about here aren't whether these guys are all pigs {they are} or whether they engaged in sexual harassment, sexual assault, or even worse sexual activity {they did}, or whether the sexual activity was consensual or not {I will come back to this later}. The question that should be paramount in each of these cases is whether the sexual activity represented the result of an inordinate balance of power. Did each of the males in these situations have power over the females that accused them? In each and every case cited above, the males held the balance of power. I therefore submit that whether the behavior was a "simple" case of harassment or a complex case of accused rape, or even a supposedly consensual sexual liaison, they are all tied together by the coercion of the more powerful person in the relationship.
We tend to allow our bloomers to get all tied up in knots over whether person A lied about their sexual liaisons. What crap. Everyone who has ever had a sexual tryst that they know they shouldn't have had, lies to others. No husband wants their wife to know just as no wife wants her husband to know. A thirty five year old is not going to be proud of dating 14 to 17 year olds, because that person knows that it is morally, if not legally wrong.
Is it possible that some of the women in some of these investigations are being less than truthful? Of course. I, for one, however, do not want to not believe those allegations without a full investigation. Could any of these men be telling the truth? Possibly, although the wealth of circumstantial evidence against every one of them seems to be overwhelming. They all do or did deserve their day in court.
So how should we deal with this type of issue? To me the answer is quite simple. There should be an open investigative committee consisting of a republican senator, a democratic senator, two republican house members, two democratic house members, and one supreme court justice. Service on this committee should be limited to two years and be rotated among members of the judicial committees and among the nine members of the supreme court. This committee would be charged with investigating accusations of sexual misconduct among elected or appointed officials.
During the period of investigation, the accused would be suspended from their position in government, with a temporary replacement of the same party appointed to serve {so not to upset the elected balance of power}. At the conclusion of the investigation, the committee would report back to the appropriate electoral body with recommendation for dismissal of accusations, recommendations for censure, or recommendation for dismissal. The electoral body would then vote on the recommendation. The recommendation and the votes would be done in public session. Any recommendation for censure or dismissal would also be turned over to appropriate law enforcement agencies if laws have been broken.
This would be a transparent approach to accusation and finding of guilt. It would also eliminate the tendency to "rush to judgement" when accusers come forth. If accusations are unfounded, the public will know. If the accusations are accurate, the accused will no longer serve. It is a solution that would benefit all.
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Taking into consideration that all such governmental investigations seem to take years to completion (something I've never been able to understand unless the parties investigating are being paid by the hour) then if the POTUS is the subject, it could be a method to get them out of the Oval Office for a long time, could it not?
Place a time limit on investigation. Give the committee enough resources to carry it out and place a time limit. The idea would be to get a fair review, not to get a partisan of the opposition out
Probably the closest thing to a guarantee would be that the person would be temporarily replaced with a person of the same party, so not to place the legislative, elective, or judicial sectors of government in total disarray. You would also hope that a system that plays out in the open would prevent frivolous accusations. There is at least public humiliation and possibly legal ramifications for swearing out a false report. All accusations should probably be taken under oath.
No let them take all the time they need but suspend judgement till the Accused gets a Fair Trial. Innocent till Proven Guilty is the Supreme Law of the Land and it still works perfectly. You wrote "Of course. I, for one, however, do not want to not believe those allegations without a full investigation." when you should have said ' I do not want to penalize an Innocent Person so I'll presume innocence until they are Proven Guilty in a Court of Law. The Court of Public Opinion isn't known for being Just and Lynch Mob Justice isn't Fair. Even a full Investigation means nothing as far as Guilt is concerned, the Accused has the right to a Defense, and to Cross-Examine Witnesses. The Results of an Investigation may be enough to get a Search Warrant or to get an Indictment or an Arrest Warrant but it doesn't Prove Guilt only a Jury Trial or a Guilty plea can do that. If We penalize the Accused before they get a Fair Trial then We also must also Penalize the Accuser if the Accused says they're lying, We wouldn't want to not believe the Allegations that the Accuser is Lying without a full Investigation.
Is there a reason why you don't think that the Ethics committees shouldn't be trusted to do this?
The ethics committees are majority party in power. If we've seen anything in the past dozen years it is how partisan those committees can be. I would want the review never to have the taint of partiality.
Actually, both Ethics Committees have equal party representation. I was surprised to see that myself.
BTW, Supreme Court Justices have WAY too much on their plates already. I'd rather they take more cases that deal with Congress' wanker wagging.