Officials with the Tennessee Democratic Party held a press conference Wednesday, saying they were disappointed in how the allegations surrounding Jeremy Durham have been handled.
Democratic Party chair, Mary Mancini, said Speaker Harwell and Governor Haslam needed to be called out on their mishandling of the case.
Mancini even went so far as to say Speaker Harwell needed to step down.
Representative Durham has been accused of sending inappropriate text messages to 3 women on Capitol Hill.
He's also accused of having an affair with a former state lawmaker who resigned last year.
These accusations were only recently made public, but Mancini said Speaker Harwell has known about the sexual harassment rumors since November, and has done little to deal with the situation.
“If speaker Harwell, who is in place now can't say she doesn’t have any responsibility over behavior of her members - look this is politics we all know they do have responsibility and they can course correct them she's not willing to do this so we'd like to see new leadership,” said Mancini.
NewsChannel 5 reached out to Speaker Harwell's office, but was told she was in meetings all day, and unable to comment.
