Widely circulated criticism of 37th District Rep. Laura Richardson’s management style — some going back to when she was on the Long Beach City Council — are coming to a head now, as the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into complaints filed in September by several of her district and Washington, D.C., staff members accusing her of employee abuse and misuse.

Richardson is reputed to have one of the highest — if not the highest — turnover of employees in the House of Representatives. This year alone, seven staffers have left her employ. Three were terminated, Terry Valdez, Teng Fang and Lala something, as Richardson’s staff has been forbidden to give me her last name. The others left on their own accord, including her D.C. communications deputy, Jeffrey Billington, who departed the Richardson gulag just the other day.

Clifford Stoddard, an investigator for the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct [Ethics Committee] interviewed the employees in Richardson’s Long Beach office a couple of weeks ago. I called Stoddard in Washington seeking information about his investigation and he told me: “I can’t talk about it. I am legally forbidden to discuss this with you because what we do is not public.”
I asked him if he could confirm or deny that he is investigating Richardson. “I can not,” he said. Granted, Richardson’s staff and I have been discussing their formal complaints and issues since Oct. 8, but I still needed confirmation that the U.S. House of Representatives is taking them seriously. Toward that end, I spoke with Richardson Tuesday and the first thing out of her mouth was: “There is no ethics investigation. They just had somebody interviewing my staff.”

That is confirmation. On Wednesday, I received a copy of a confidential e-mail sent to Richardson’s staff in mid-October from the U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The e-mail is captioned: “Investigation of Certain Allegations Related to Campaign Activities.” The e-mail goes on to state: “Pursuant to rule 18(a), the committee has authorized counsel to conduct interviews, collect records and other documentation...” So, despite Richardson’s denial and Stoddard’s zipped lip, I think it’s safe to say, yeah, she’s being investigated.

Richardson’s district employees told me that they told Stoddard the congresswoman is abusive, cusses them out, intimidates them, forces them, under threat of termination, to work her re-election campaign each weekday evening from 6 to 9 p.m. and all day on the weekends from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. This is on top of their normal working hours which end at 6 p.m. People in her D.C. office complained to the Ethics Committee about a fundraiser Richardson held for which she could not afford to hire people to serve, so she forced her staff to serve at the event. Richardson told me her staffers volunteered for such extra work.

I asked if she forced them to volunteer. “No, I did not force them to volunteer,” she answered. She further stated: “I am an extremely hard worker and I expect the people I work with to work hard, too. Not everybody wants to work hard.” She said this whole “non-investigation” resulted from the Soulvine column I wrote sometime ago questioning whether Richardson’s involvement of Ken Miller, her press deputy, and Eric Boyd, her district director, in her re-election campaign activities was a violation of the Hatch Act, as well as a complaint filed by one disgruntled member of her D.C. staff.

“That’s what this is all about,” the congresswoman asserted. Richardson’s staff admitted that Stoddard had the Soulvine column and began his questioning with its contents, but they said their responses led to full disclosures of what life as a Laura Richardson employee is really like.

“I told him how abusive the congresswoman is and how she intimidates and coerces employees into doing whatever she sees fit, even it means breaking the law,” one staffer said. “For our interviews with Stoddard, the congresswoman offered us the services of an attorney that she would pay for,” the staffer continued. “But we didn’t use him because we figured she’d renege on paying him and we’d be stuck with the legal bill. And besides, we didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t need an attorney — she did,” the staffer said.

A couple of months ago, one of Richardson’s House colleagues told me that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Richardson into her office and chewed her out about her behavior. Pelosi allegedly instructed Richardson to get her stuff together, clean up her act and stay out of the newspapers because her antics were making the whole Democratic Party look bad. I asked Richardson if such a meeting had been held between her and Pelosi.

She said no. “Such a meeting never occurred. She never spoke to me about that. After all, she’s the speaker and she doesn’t do that kind of thing.”

Late Tuesday night, I received a call from Congresswoman-elect Karen Bass, whom Richardson had obviously enlisted to persuade me not to write this column, knowing how close Bass and I are. After I finished yelling and screaming about the audacity of such a call, the first words out of Bass’ mouth was: “There is no investigation.” I heaved a sigh and said: “If not, then why did an Ethics Committee person interview Laura’s staff?”

Bass was audibly surprised by this information and asked, “They interviewed her staff?” I said, “Yeah, but she didn’t tell you that, did she?” Then Bass proceeded to tell me how well Richardson is regarded in Congress and of her great deeds in Washington, etc. etc. etc. Then I asked: “If she’s so well regarded in Congress, why did Pelosi summon her to her office and read her the riot act about her behavior?” Then Bass said: “Well after that, she got better!” I rest my case.

There is a lot more and worse stuff being alleged against Richardson which I can’t go into right now but I will discuss it as this investigation proceeds and as I get more people to speak on the record. But I did promise Richardson that I would include here today one complete statement from her. Here it is: “I have quite a few staff members working for me over 10 years [namely, Daysha Austin, whom the other staffers detest] and I think they would tell you that I take care of the people who work for me. We work very hard.”