A woman running to flip a Kansas congressional seat from red to blue next year is ending her campaign after allegations surfaced that she had sexually harassed, and then fired, a former subordinate.
Andrea Ramsey, 56, is a retired business executive who worked in the nonprofit sector before deciding to run for office as a Democrat in 2018's congressional midterm polls.
But this month, The
Kansas City Star newspaper asked her about a 2005 lawsuit that accused her of sexually harassing a man at LabOne, where she was the executive vice-president of human resources, and then firing him after he rejected her advances, a claim Ramsey denies. The suit was against the company, not Ramsey specifically, and it was settled in 2006.
"Twelve years ago, I eliminated an employee's position," Ramsey said in a letter posted to
Facebook on Friday. "That man decided to bring a lawsuit against the company (not against me). He named me in the allegations, claiming I fired him because he refused to have sex with me. That is a lie."
Ramsey is the rare — perhaps the only — woman in public life to face consequences from a sexual harassment accusation in the weeks since journalistic exposes spawned the #MeToo movement. She said that her political opponents were using the false allegations against her, and she criticised the
Democratic Party for implementing a "zero tolerance standard."
