The GOP candidate looking to fill late Rep. Elijah Cummings’s congressional seat said Democrats aren’t supportive of black women running for office if they are Republicans.
“This hashtag #WinWithBlackWomen is a good one. Problem is, it seems to only apply to DEMOCRAT black women,” Kimberly Klacik, who is black, tweeted Thursday morning. “I am the Republican Nominee in Maryland’s Congressional District 7 running against a man w/sexual harassment claims under his belt. Crickets.”
This hashtag #WinWithBlackWomen is a good one. Problem is, it seems to only apply to DEMOCRAT black women.
I am the Republican Nominee in Maryland’s Congressional District 7 running against a man w/sexual harassment claims under his belt.
Crickets ??♀️ https://t.co/OuQLEBxBgd
— Kimberly Klacik (@kimKBaltimore) August 13, 2020
“I believe all black women should be included. Diversity of thought is progressive and truly what our country needs to begin to unite,” she further told the Washington Examiner.
Klacik’s November opponent, Democratic Rep. Kweisi Mfume, has a controversial history with the NAACP and was accused of sexual misconduct during his time as president of the organization. In 2004, accusations were made that Mfume created an environment of nepotism and that he sexually harassed employee Michele Speaks by “touch[ing] her on the hip.”
A lawyer hired by the NAACP to investigate the claims wrote in a memo at the time, “the impression [was] created that a woman must provide sexual favors to Mr. Mfume or his associates in order to receive favorable treatment in the workplace.” However, the lawyer said the accusations amounted to “he said, she said.”
Speaks hired a lawyer after making the allegations and asked the organization for $140,000 in exchange for not filing a lawsuit or complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The NAACP settled with Speaks for $100,000, BuzzFeed News reported this year.
Mfume was pushed out as president of the NAACP following the accusations, according to the Baltimore Sun, but he has denied the validity of the claims.
“I don’t engage in inappropriate behavior,” he said in 2005. “And if I did, I’m sure after nine years there, 10 years in the Congress and seven years on the [Baltimore] City Council, it would have been an issue long before your telephone call to me.”
He also admitted in 2005 that he had an affair with a subordinate when he was president of the NAACP, labeling it a “boneheaded” thing to do.
Mfume previously defeated Klacik in this year’s special election for the Baltimore-area district after Cummings, who had served in the Democratic stronghold since 1996, died in 2019. The two will face off again in the general election on Nov. 3.
