LINCOLN- Just over a year after a workplace harassment scandal rocked the Nebraska Legislature, lawmakers finally adopted a handful of new changes to its harassment policy in the hopes of avoiding similar incidents, although some argue there is still much work to be done. On Wednesday, the Legislature's Executive Board voted unanimously to adopt six changes to its harassment policy and one change to its leave of absence policy.

One of these changes makes it clear that lawmakers don't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" regarding improper use of the Legislature's technology and network. This change is directly related to last year's revelation that former Sen. Mike Groene took photos of a female staff member without her knowledge, and went on to save these pictures to his computer. The scandal prompted the creation of an interim ethics committee, which was tasked with establishing new changes to prevent further misconduct.

Another one of the approved changes calls for notifying employees who file complaints of harassment about the several options available to them outside of the Legislature, including reporting to law enforcement, and also allows them to "go public" with their complaints at any time. Other policy changes relate to inappropriate uses of state-owned technology, and allow forensic searches of personal or legislative technology when relevant to an investigation. Although Board members were happy with the progress made, Sen. Tom Briese, who chairs the board, agreed that there was far more work to be done in this area to ensure that every staffer and lawmaker is safe in the Capitol.

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