Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people's things alone and be kind to one another. That’s the way Lt. Tim Cotton ends every post on the famous Facebook page of the Bangor Police Department in Maine. It’s good, normal advice. It’s too bad some of our elected officials apparently don’t follow it.

State representative Kate A. Klunk, R-York, has proposed an addition to the legislative rules governing the legislators’ professional conduct. The current rule allows the chamber to take action against members who sexually harass other legislators and employees of the House of Representatives, independent of criminal proceedings.

That’s obviously too narrow. Legislators hold power over many people they work with who are not employed by the legislature. These people want or need something from the legislators, who can be tempted to use this power in sexually exploitative ways. Ms. Klunk wants to add a line to the current House rules to include sexual harassment of anyone with whom a legislator does legislative business, and with anyone while they are in the House’s facilities.

She’s absolutely right: Legislators don’t stop acting as legislators when they leave the Capitol. The chamber should be able to enforce professional standards of conduct on its members wherever their business takes them.

The rules already forbid them from abusing their office financially. But exploiting others sexually is at least as much a crime against the people and the institution as demanding kickbacks. It degrades the House’s ability to do the work it is supposed to be doing.

And the victims deserve a recourse that’s more immediate than the court system. Just as victims of workplace harassment can appeal within their company, even if the offense isn’t a crime, so people involved with our state government should be able to appeal for protection or justice without waiting on the courts.

Further, expanding the scope of House rules makes it clear that the chamber takes this kind of corruption especially seriously. That should induce some members to act more respectfully and discourage at least some of those with bad motives from seeking office in the first place.

The proposal was referred to the Rules Committee on April 5th. It’s encouraging, given how slow the state legislature has been to police itself on other matters, that Ms. Klunk’s resolution is a subject of bipartisan negotiations. Yet it has not gone further.

Leaders Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, and Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, should make make it a priority to agree on strong language to protect the vulnerable from some of the most powerful people in Pennsylvania: themselves.

First Published: June 20, 2022, 10:30 p.m.