House Ethics Panel provided ‘restorative justice’ response to legislator’s bag-soaking scheme

After investigating accusations that a representative repeatedly bullied her district mate throughout the 2024 legislative session by secretly pouring water into his tote bag, the Vermont House Ethics Panel initiated a “restorative justice process as a response.”

In a joint statement issued Thursday, Rep. Jim Carroll, D-Bennington, the target of the bullying, and Rep. Mary Morrissey, R-Bennington, who admitted to the acts, wrote that they met with the House Ethics Panel throughout this summer to discuss the incidents. The panel launched an investigation after Carroll filed a formal ethics complaint against Morrissey.

But the matter isn’t entirely closed. According to the statement, the ethics panel will “monitor Representative Morrissey’s compliance with her commitments to repair the harm she caused.”

“I await the further discussions on needed reparations, and those discussions have not been concluded,” Carroll told VTDigger on Thursday. “I have no further comment, other than to say that I hope no one ever has to go through anything similar in their lives.”

In an email Thursday, Director of Legislative Operations Mike Ferrant wrote that the panel members would not provide any further comment on the matter. Morrissey did not immediately return VTDigger’s phone call.

In June, Morrissey read a prepared statement aloud over the phone, during which she said, “I just want to say how very, very sorry I am for my actions of pouring water into Jim Carroll’s tote bag.”

Carroll’s allegations were first reported by Seven Days in early June, weeks after the 2024 legislative session concluded. As he later recounted to VTDigger , Carroll at certain points in the session would find his bag soaked on a near daily basis, and began to suspect Morrissey — who he described as treating him with animus for years — was the culprit.

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Told by Capitol Police that he needed evidence of his allegations, Carroll took matters into his own hands, setting up a hidden camera inside the Statehouse to catch Morrissey in the act. He did, twice.

Once she was confronted with the video evidence, Morrissey admitted first to House leadership, then to reporters, that she was guilty of the water-pouring scheme. The House Ethics Panel, which keeps its official investigations and actions under strict confidentiality rules, began to look into the matter.

According to Thursday’s statement, the House panel’s “restorative justice process is designed for affected persons to summarize the harm they suffered and for persons who are at fault for such harm to take accountability, apologize, and make amends.”

The Thursday statement said Carroll explained to panel members during the summer’s Ethics Panel meetings “how the intentional and repeated actions that Representative Morrissey targeted at him caused distress and disrupted his life over several months.” And in the aftermath, once the incident came to public light, Carroll said the harm was “intensified,” and “unfairly consumed his time because of (Morrissey’s) actions.”

“In addition, Representative Morrissey’s behavior and the public response to it reflected negatively on the integrity and reputation of the Vermont House of Representatives,” the statement continued. “The Ethics Panel recognizes that the public response has also caused harm to Representative Morrissey.”

According to Thursday’s statement, Morrissey “is committed to making amends, including activities that encourage the development and strengthening of collaborative and positive relationships within the legislative community.”

Come November, Morrissey and Carroll will face a competitor at the ballot box. Michael Nigro, a Democrat and former state representative himself, is running for one of the district’s two seats in the Vermont state House.

Read the story on VTDigger here: House Ethics Panel provided ‘restorative justice’ response to legislator’s bag-soaking scheme .