Rep. Eric Massa, Democrat, Resigning Monday Amid Scandal

Patricia Murphy

Capitol Hill Bureau Chief

Posted:

03/5/10

Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) announced Friday that he will resign from Congress Monday afternoon, rather than at the end of the congressional session as he had previously intended.

When he first declared his intention to retire at the end of 2010, Massa explained that a cancer scare had led to his unexpected decision to leave Congress after just one term. But by Thursday, the House Ethics Committee confirmed that it had opened an investigation into allegations that the congressman sexually harassed a male staff member.

Without admitting to those charges, Massa released an open letter to his constituents on Friday, saying he will leave on Monday "with a profound sense of failure." He also detailed what he called "language that failed to meet the standards" he set for himself.

"I own this reality," he wrote. "There is no doubt in my mind that I did in fact, use language in the privacy of my own home and n my inner office that, after 24 years in the Navy, might make a Chief Petty Officer feel uncomfortable." He described "long car rides, in the early hours of the evening, late at night and always in private," when his language "fell short."

Massa said he is leaving not because he is guilty of an ethics violation, but because an investigation "would tear my family and my staff apart."

By leaving Congress, Massa will not only put an end to the Ethics committee investigation, he will save House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at least some level of embarrassment over the potential conduct of one of her members. House Democrats had been deeply afraid the Massa investigation could finish in the fall of 2010, weeks before the mid-term elections and eerily similar to the Mark Foley scandal that sank Republicans' chances of keeping control of the House.

Massa will also save Pelosi a vote on health care reform. His departure will take the official House majority from 217 to 216, meaning Pelosi can pass health care reform with one fewer vote that she would have needed before his departure. She probably could not have counted on Massa's vote anyway. He voted against health reform when the House passed it in November.

A radio host in Massa's district, Bob Lonsberry, wrote Thursday that whether or not the allegations before the ethics committee are true, they are not the first of their kind to surface about the congressman. Lonsberry detailed several incidents brought to his attention years ago by men who served in the Navy with Massa, stories he did not report when he learned of them three years ago because they could be just gossip, or an orchestrated lie.

Since then, he said he has come to like and respect the congressman, despite their political differences, and found the resignation profoundly sad. " I was surprised to hear Eric Massa was quitting politics," he wrote. "But I wasn't surprised by the reason why."