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Eye On Boise

McGee has resigned after sexual harassment allegation involving Senate attache

Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill, center, announces the resignation Wednesday of Senate Majority Caucus Chairman John McGee, R-Caldwell, after sexual harassment allegations involving a Senate staffer. (Betsy Russell)
Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill, center, announces the resignation Wednesday of Senate Majority Caucus Chairman John McGee, R-Caldwell, after sexual harassment allegations involving a Senate staffer. (Betsy Russell)

The three remaining Senate GOP leaders - Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill, Majority Leader Bart Davis, and Assistant Majority Leader Chuck Winder - have announced to a packed press conference that Sen. John McGee has resigned from the Senate in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment of a Senate attache. Hill said the harassment charges are being investigated by the Idaho Attorney General, and the attache, a woman who is not a minor, is on paid leave.

McGee, R-Caldwell, is a fourth term state senator and also is the chairman of the Canyon County Republican Central Committee. A former aide to then-Sen. and Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, McGee, 39, is the marketing director for West Valley Medical Center in Caldwell, and is married with two young children. He was widely viewed as a rising star in the Idaho GOP before the bizarre incident last June in which he was arrested and convicted of drunken driving. After he paid restitution, additional charges were dropped against McGee for stealing a stranger's vehicle and attached trailer, then jackknifing it in a neighbor's front yard.

McGee was found sleeping in the vehicle's backseat and was arrested; he said he couldn't remember what happened after an evening of drinking at a golf tournament six miles away.

The Senate GOP has wrestled this session with questions over the fate of McGee as its majority caucus chairman.  The caucus voted earlier to retain him in his leadership post, but then nine GOP senators signed a public letter saying they'd voted against retaining him. In the House, Rep. Julie Ellsworth, R-Boise, introduced a bill to change House rules to boot out any House majority or minority leadership member who is convicted of driving under the influence; that bill still is pending in a House committee.
 



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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