It sure has been a year for Rep. Troy Nehls, hasn’t it?
Rep. Troy Nehls
A gay former staffer for U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Richmond, sued the congressman’s office Friday, saying he was effectively forced from his job after a history of homophobic behavior by the lawmaker and his chief of staff.
Alex Chadwell, who served as a legislative correspondent and field representative for Nehls from 2021 to 2023, alleged he was subjected to homophobic comments and lost responsibilities after Nehls confirmed Chadwell was gay.
“The Representative, his Chief of Staff and his Special Advisor all regularly made offensive comments about gay people, directed toward Plaintiff,” Chadwell’s lawsuit said. “Considered as a whole, the hostile environment was sufficiently severe and/or pervasive to change the terms and conditions of Plaintiff’s employment and it resulted in a constructive termination.”
Nehls’ office denied the allegations.
[…]
Chadwell’s family was friends with Nehls and Chadwell worked in Nehls’ Washington office, according to the lawsuit. During that time, he said Nehls’ chief of staff, Robert Schroeder, often made derisive comments about gay people, including “gays go to hell” and that men who were not “manly” or “masculine” were more likely to be gay. Schroeder also told Chadwell not to engage with gay constituents, according to the lawsuit.
Schroeder once said of gay men having sexual relations: “I don’t mess with that at all— I don’t like that lifestyle,” according to the lawsuit. He also said that the office would not support pro-LGBTQ legislation and also made disparaging remarks about Muslims and Indian Americans.
Nehls also made homophobic remarks, according to the lawsuit, which was first reported by Politico, including that the Office did not support gay people.
Chadwell transferred to Nehls’ district office, citing the environment in the Washington office. Chadwell said he would have otherwise remained in the Washington office. The lawsuit said Schroeder encouraged Chadwell to leave the office because he was gay.
“Mr. Schroeder soon began telling Plaintiff he had no future or growth potential with the Office and should explore other opportunities,” the lawsuit said. “Schroeder did this because Plaintiff is gay, and Schroeder did not want him working for Rep. Nehls.”
Schroeder told Chadwell on his last day of employment that his “lifestyle” made him incompatible with the office, according to the lawsuit.
“Mr. Chadwell was deeply offended and disturbed that, up until his last day in the Office, the Office continued to isolate, ostracize and harass him because of his sexual orientation,” the lawsuit said.
So just checking the scoreboard, that’s one ethics investigation, one allegation of stolen valor, and now one hostile workplace lawsuit. Quite the trilogy, and it’s all happened since March. I’m sure it must be exhausting.
This is where I would like to say that this has “heated up” the race in CD22, or whatever other trope we like to use in horse-race politics. That possibility hasn’t come up in any of these stories, and I doubt it will outside of my own mention. On the one hand, while CD22 was redistricted to be redder than it had become by 2020, it’s still not ridiculously red. It really shouldn’t be competitive, but given a combination of a strong Democratic candidate, a national environment that favors Democrats, and a scandal-tainted Republican incumbent, it’s surely not too hard to imagine a race with the potential to be a lot closer than one might have expected. Elections always have the capacity to surprise, though as often as not one can at least see the possibility from a little ways out. I’m saying that could be the case here.
Now to be sure, we don’t know what the environment will be. The vibes and the momentum are on the Dem side, and we still have the convention to build on it, but the Dems started in a hole that they’re still climbing out of, and if we’ve learned one thing from this cycle, it’s that things can change dramatically in a hurry. So let’s light a candle for the vibes but not count on them just yet. Marquette Greene-Scott is a perfectly fine candidate, but she’s not raised any money, which is the surest way to be overlooked that there is. I find that very frustrating, in the sense that it should be possible for coordinated campaigns or other campaign super-structures to notice these possibilities and invest a little venture capital into them – why not throw $50K or $100K at Greene-Scott, to build some infrastructure that might also benefit Colin Allred, or the 2026 challenger to Nehls? – but that’s just not how it works. It is what it is.
Anyway. Whatever else happens, I’ll be very interested in seeing what the precinct data looks like in CD22. It’s a district I expected to make its way into the conversation over the course of the decade. Maybe we should start talking about it now.
Not that I condone hostile work environments, but seriously what did Mr. Chadwell think he was getting into, working for such a Trump bootlicker clown?
As for Marquette Greene-Scott, no local signs of her at all.