Awkward conversations on Capitol Hill

As every staffer on Capitol Hill knows, your job is to support your Congress members in any way you can.

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The question is, how far does that go?

As a member of the staff, you can find yourself asked to do anything, from helping to write a bill that will make history to listening to the boss bare his soul.

And that appears to be what’s behind the resignation of Republican Trent Franks.

Franks, a member of Congress, stated that he never attempted to have any sexual contact with any staff member. What he had done was discuss with former female staffers the process of another woman having his next child.

Now, before you jump to conclusions, he was talking about a process called gestational surrogacy, which is how he and his wife were able to have their son and daughter despite their fertility problems.

There’s no sex involved, the surrogate simply provides her womb and the parents provide the DNA. The process is not at all erotic; it’s actually fairly miserable.

However, the former staffers apparently took the conversation the wrong way. Although I’m struggling to figure out what the right way to take it would have been.

I would guess that Franks, being ardently pro-life, saw this as the ultimate expression of that crusade, but I can see where a woman might consider this to be a fairly awkward conversation to have.

Anyway, Franks’ resignation will preempt the pending ethics investigation. And as much as we’d all like to move on, I’m pretty sure we’re just resetting the shot clock.

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