In the summer of 2018, I was hired by then candidate Mike Zabel to be his campaign manager. I was hired after several interviews and my final interview took place at the Zabel residence, where I also got to meet his wife, Lauren, for the first time. After my hiring, we quickly got to work.

I worked many hours and I worked with a shoestring budget to create a winning campaign. There were a number of experiences on that campaign that made me clear on my desire not to work in his office should we win.

Frequent bouts of anger, screaming, and rage toward me without warning, inappropriate comments made in public spaces, a moment where he chose to pose for a picture with a man he knew sexually harassed me, and numerous occasions where I would be working and couldn’t locate Mike, were all among the reasons I didn’t want to continue the professional relationship past that race.

On one occasion while at a fundraiser hosted by members of Mike’s wife’s family, Mike put his hands on my back, grabbing me and moving his hand upward and downward in the way people who are in a romantic relationship would, until I leaned away as inconspicuously as possible.

He looked over in a way I perceived at the time to be recognition of a clumsy mistake — a man who thought he was holding onto his wife standing a few feet away, but who grabbed the wrong person accidentally. Not wanting it to be a scene as he apologized repeatedly, I quietly but forcefully said “Mike don’t worry about it”.

As I reflected upon that incident in the hours and days after, I considered alcohol to be a prominent character in that story, despite this only happening within the first 30 minutes of us driving there together. I also realized his facial reaction may have been in reaction to me, and that it might not have been an accident. I forced myself to believe it was an accident because I wanted this professional experience to be a good one, desperately.

There were other times during the campaign where his relationship with alcohol became a concern to me, including at a fundraiser I held for him using my personal network, in which he jumped into an improv scene with my friends and made a number of crude jokes about Brett Kavanaugh. This was during the Kavanaugh hearings. I was ashamed and didn’t confront Mike about this incident because he clearly had been drinking and I was afraid what his response would be. I also didn’t want to embarrass him. It was a hard thing to see during the same week I had a volunteer come in off the street, tearfully wanting to do something with her anxious energy during those hearings to feel useful. I am also guilty, like so many of us, of being awkward or cracking a joke at the wrong time. Again, I made excuses and I shoved down my own feelings.

After the race was won, by a larger margin than most stakeholders believed it would be, Mike and I seemed to be on good enough terms. And then a few weeks later, as I started interviewing for jobs elsewhere, he held job interviews with numerous colleagues of mine who had expressed interest in working in his district office. He held these meetings at a local bar, and to multiple professional colleagues in my community, he drunkenly disparaged me. This was a major red flag for one of my colleagues who declined to take a job with him and called me to tell me what happened. I felt deeply hurt at that time, because I couldn’t understand what I could have done more to serve this man than what I had done, or why he would want to say mean things about me after I got this first time candidate elected to the General Assembly, flipping the district blue. I was most of all concerned that someone I just elected was conducting job interviews at a bar, and what this meant for his job performance moving forward. This all can be corroborated.

I am not upset about any of this anymore because I’ve come to recognize over time that when Mike has a few drinks, he changes and becomes less predictable to me. Those remarks were made at a bar, and I have had calm, pleasant conversations with Mike when that wasn’t a factor.

But the fact still remains that five years after electing this man to office, I still get calls far too often — about his drinking amounts at public events, about remarks he has made in spaces where it would not be appropriate., about confidences he has broken at the bar, and the concerns colleagues of all genders have learned to have over time when he is in close proximity to young women while drinking.

When I learned of Andi’s allegation, from a mutual contact, I confronted Mike by phone, and I told him to get himself support to make alcohol a less central factor in his life. I did not demand his sobriety, because I didn’t want an inappropriate push for that to make his struggles worse. I offered my support as well with anything he might need. When we spoke back then, Mike absolutely did not deny the interaction with her. I do not know if Mike was drinking during the alleged incident, but I do know that he agreed with me that there was an issue, and for a while it was my understanding he was not drinking at all at work-related functions. That change was not permanent.

I also endured another incident, in which unfortunately, two other elected officials were drunkenly arguing in a bar at an election night party. This was in late 2021. Mike, seeing me step in between to protect the woman in the fight from a man’s fists, picked up his drink and went to the other room. I was completely horrified. I put this incident on record with the PA Democratic Party at the time it happened and received absolutely no response in regard to anyone’s behavior.

I continue to receive comments about Mike’s behavior almost five years after I stopped working for him, and a few weeks before the article about Andi came out, I was texted by a colleague who I trust who witnessed Mike at the inaugural ball, an event for the public with press, completely inebriated. It was very late, in another part of the state from me, and I thought about calling him and asking him to get a cab home, and I hesitated, because I felt like he wouldn’t listen to me anyway, that for once I should try not to be involved.

I reported my second-hand knowledge of this concern to Rep. Leanne Krueger, I believe within the following day or two.

I didn’t want to have to say any of this publicly for a myriad of reasons. (1) Given all that I have been through in my life, this public disclosure is terrifying. (2) I genuinely care about Mike and all of his loved ones, and do not want to see his family hurt in any way. (3) My life experiences and my trauma tell me that I am in a world of pain for being honest about any of this publicly. I wrote an essay like this before and it resulted in years and years of litigation, a devastating blow to my physical and mental health. There are people who will never find me credible, who do not want to hear what I have to say, and they remain angry with my existence. I am mindful of them as I write this. They are a large reason why I have been silent about all this for so long.

But we do not have a better system than young staffers telling the truth publicly. I have had dozens of conversations with Mike about this. I have also repeatedly raised my concerns with party leaders at every level. Nothing has changed with him, and no policies have effectively changed to make political spaces safe for staffers around anyone who has posed a safety issue for others. To be clear, nothing has changed about countless safety issues in our spaces that would shock donors and voters alike.

I’m not going to be silent about it anymore. I am sorry to everyone who I have let down up until this point for not fighting this battle with him publicly and brazenly, as I am often perceived. I wanted to try a better way. I wanted my former boss and friend to get some help and feel better and be better.

The reality is that without the labor of countless women and femmes, Mike would not be an elected official. The constituents of this district have not been receiving the full attention of their state representative, and they deserve nothing less.

I am calling for Rep. Zabel to resign from his position in consultation with Speaker McClinton and party leadership after a special election can be scheduled expeditiously. I am also asking him to seek out whatever personal support he needs to heal and be well. He has my number if he needs my help in making that happen. I mean this offer genuinely, whether he chooses to believe that or not.

I am also requesting the leaders of our party to hold a meeting where survivors and campaign staffers can bring forward ideas to make their jobs and volunteer work safer when working with the Pennsylvania Democratic Party or its endorsed candidates. Our code of conduct is woefully insufficient, and every passing day is causing harm to young people and risking future progressive victories. We have no more time to waste.

Finally, I am calling on the members of the minority party and publications like Broad and Liberty to stop rewriting history. For years, Republicans led this chamber and have never taken up this issue, and when members of their caucus were accused of serious acts of abuse, including against a fellow member, they allowed him to finish out his term and collect a pension. Any accountability that has happened against any of these people who have abused their power has come from the labor of women, femmes, and their allies in the public, not from a political party. If you want to be part of the solutions, start now, but the sanctimonious lectures and “journalism” are as disingenuous as they are harmful.