WASHINGTON _ News that a top aide had sued Texas Rep. Blake Farenthold for sexual harassment in late 2014 was public almost as soon as the ink dried on the paperwork. So was the news a year later that she'd settled out of court.
It didn't cost him re-election in 2016.
But this month, the Republican abruptly announced he's withdrawing from the 2018 race, after news hit that taxpayers footed the bill for the $84,000 settlement, and more former staffers accused him of crude remarks and an unprofessional office culture.
Farenthold is one of numerous politicians, media moguls and business executives whose fortunes have been upended in recent months amid a national gut-check over sexual misconduct.
But the trigger is a bit of a mystery. The allegations weren't new. The settlement wasn't new. What changed? The size of the settlement? The fact that public funds were used? Or had something much bigger shifted, snaring him in a national reassessment of what behavior the public will tolerate?
Recent complaints against high-powered men run the gamut from rape, sexual assault and groping to harassment and lewd, inappropriate remarks. Some of the perpetrators resigned immediately or were terminated. Others have dug in. Some, including Farenthold, found a middle ground, keeping their jobs for another year.
The consequences haven't always followed a predictable pattern, reflecting an evolving definition for what's out of bounds, or at least politically survivable.
"We are in the middle of a debate that is determining where the boundaries are, and the actions of the individuals are helping determine where those boundaries are," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on political rhetoric.
Each resignation or ouster defines new norms, but it's a messy business.
Kelly Dittmar, a political scientist with the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, frames the national conversation academically. In any good policy process, the first step to addressing the problem is defining it.
She points to Anita Hill's testimony during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Hill's account of his boasts about his sexual prowess and repeated propositions of her divided the nation. Many people disbelieved and targeted her _ a disheartening setback for anyone who'd hoped victims and accusers would no longer be vilified.
"At that point, it was just being willing to say that sexual harassment existed and that it was a problem," Dittmar said. "Now we're in, at least to me, the stage of trying to define what actually counts as sexual harassment and who gets to be the arbiter of that."
