Rep. Bob Hooper (D-Burlington) resigned from his seat in the Vermont House on Monday after his colleagues demanded he step down for violating the chamber’s sexual harassment rules.
In an email to House Speaker Jill Krowinski (D-Burlington), Hooper said he was resigning “earlier than anticipated.” He wrote, “I feel the environment of the House has changed significantly and influenced my decision for the next cycle.”
He could not be reached for comment.
The veteran lawmaker, a retired social worker and former union leader who has represented the New North End since 2019, went from being a little known backbencher to a legislative pariah in a matter of hours last week. It started on Thursday with the resolution of a lengthy, confidential investigation by the five-member House Sexual Harassment Prevention Panel.
After a probe by an outside law firm, the panel found “by clear and convincing evidence” that Hooper had harassed another lawmaker, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by Seven Days.
The panel found that Hooper sent “an edited photograph” of a female colleague to the rest of the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee without either her consent or “any context.”
In a post on Front Porch Forum, Hooper explained that he took a photo of a colleague who was joking that her dress matched the rug in their committee room. He later cropped the rug out of the photo and sent it to the rest of the committee, he explained.
“Of course, I apologized the next morning but could feel that her humiliation was apparent,” Hooper wrote.
The panel also found Hooper had made “inappropriate remarks in the committee room,” according to the agreement, which also refers to an “inappropriate joke.” One remark struck the victim as having sexual overtones, according to someone familiar with the investigative report. Hooper denied this in his post.
The panel also found that other instances identified by the law firm “demonstrate a pattern of conduct.”
The panel noted that Hooper was also the subject of an informal complaint to House leaders in 2022, but the matter was not forwarded to the panel for consideration.
In the agreement, Hooper admits he violated the sexual harassment policy and “accepts responsibility for the harm suffered by” the person who filed the complaint.
It called on him to give up his seat on the House Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee and not be appointed to another. It also required him to avoid the person he harassed, and that he attend, at his own expense, “a course of training relating to self awareness, respectful communication, personal space and prevention of sexual harassment.”
If Hooper failed to follow through, the agreement indicated he could have faced further disciplinary action. Other options available to House leaders in such a situation include censure or removal from the chamber, which can be lengthy and complicated.
In a Friday morning email to the entire House, Krowinski explained that Hooper would not be reassigned to another committee for the rest of the session, sharply curtailing his ability to influence legislation.
Hours later, House Democrats released a statement calling for him to resign his seat “immediately.” They declared the House has “zero tolerance for sexual harassment, discrimination, or any hostile behavior.” It was signed by 84 of the 87 Democrats.
Facing mounting pressure, Hooper left the Statehouse late Friday morning and later told House leaders he planned to step down after speaking to an attorney.
Conor Kennedy, Krowinski’s chief of staff, told Seven Days that three additional people had brought concerns about Hooper to his boss since 2021. It’s not clear how many went through the formal complaint process, but none resulted in a formal finding by the panel that its rules had been violated, Kennedy said.
Mitzi Johnson, who served as speaker from 2017 to 2021, said she was “not surprised” that Hooper had been called to account. As speaker, she received multiple reports of people having weird or unwelcome interactions with him in the Statehouse, she told Seven Days.
None of them individually merited disciplinary action, Johnson said, but taken together, they suggested Hooper was unable or unwilling to change his behavior.
“Over my four years I did not see him learning,” Johnson said.
In one instance, Johnson said, Hooper and a new female lawmaker were passing through a narrow glass doorway. Johnson said she didn’t remember the exact comment, but Hooper used the opportunity to say something to the new lawmaker “that had to do with the physical closeness that all three of us were in,” Johnson recalled.
The remark made the lawmaker uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to file a formal complaint, Johnson said.
Johnson later pulled Hooper aside and told him what he had said was inappropriate, but Hooper dismissed the comment as innocuous, Johnson recalled.
“His whole attitude was, ‘I was trying to make a joke,’” Johnson said. “There was a total lack of responsibility.”
She and others had difficult discussions about how to deal with someone who routinely crept up to the line of inappropriateness but never crossed it so clearly that disciplinary action was justified, Johnson said.
It’s an area that Vermont employment attorney Kerin Stackpole, who has led training sessions for lawmakers, calls “the Stupid Zone,” Johnson recalled.
Hooper “lived in the Stupid Zone,” Johnson said.
Disciplining people in such situations is tricky because the accused person has rights and investigations need to be conducted confidentially and with care, she said. There can also be political implications, she noted
“It’s especially hard when you are having to speak up against one of your own. Someone you agree with. Someone you’ve worked for in elections. Someone whose vote you need,” she said.
Just two months ago, Johnson said, she bumped into Hooper at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts and he said something about her new photo on LinkedIn.
“He had a way of making it sound a little bit more voyeuristic, a little bit creepier,” Johnson recalled.
In his post, Hooper suggested that his personality as a “hugger, a smart ass, a joker” was at the heart of any miscommunications with colleagues. “That didn’t always fit in well with the House decorum, but a zebra doesn’t change their stripes easily,” he wrote.