By Guy Page

Burlington Democrat Rep. Bob Hooper’s statement of resignation from the Vermont House published in the Tuesday, March 17 House Journal underscores several points he made in his Monday, March 16 interview with the Vermont Daily Chronicle. 

“The environment of the House has changed significantly,”  Hooper told his former colleagues.

Hooper resigned his Chittenden-18 New North End seat Monday after the House Sexual Harrassment Prevention Panel found Friday he had engaged in sexual harassment. On Saturday all but three members of the Democrat caucus signed a letter calling for him to resign.

Hooper told VDC that the finding stems from his photographing a member rolling on the floor of the Local Government and Military Affairs Committee. She was trying to show that her dress matched the color of the rug, he said. 

Hooper said he posted the photo to the committee’s text thread, and then tried to photoshop it, replacing the rug with a beach scene. However, his limited computer skills resulted in removing the background and leaving nothing in its place. The appearance of a woman seemingly floating in the void prompted the sexual harassment charge, he said. 

Since VDC’s story yesterday, no-one in the State House has disputed the facts Hooper presented. Only one other news media (Seven Days) is known to have published Hooper’s account of the botched photoshop of the House member on the committee room floor.

Hooper’s letter reads, verbatim, in the House Journal:

Please accept this instrument as my formal notice of resignation from theVermont House of Representatives. 

Although earlier than anticipated, I feel the environment of the House has changed significantly and influenced my decision for the next cycle. 

I thank the body for the friendships and conversations over the years, and the members of even the minority party who wished me God Speed over the last few days. I especially thank Representative Sweeney of Shelburne for singularly taking the time to sit down and discuss his feelings with me, which influenced my decision to resign well before my Party made their feelings known. 

We have massive problems before us that must be solved in order to improve the lives of Vermonters-new and old. Bold leadership will be required.  Best of luck. – Robert Hooper

The following more indepth account of Hooper’s version of the incident  is republished from yesterday’s VDC:

During the 2025 session, committee members noted that a fellow committee member’s dress was the same color as the rug of the committee room. Others mentioned it to her. To illustrate the rug/dress color coordination, Hooper said, the member got down on the floor of the committee room and rolled around – all apparently in good, collegial fun. Nothing sexual intended.

Hooper, 74, has worked as a photographer in years past. He has contributed many photos to Sen. Alison Clarkson’s popular photo montage, displayed in the Cedar Creek Room at the end of every session. In a Monday afternoon telephone interview, recorded with his permission, Hooper picks up the story:

“So anyway she’s laying on the floor. A committee member said to me, well after the fact cuz this went back 10 months, that she had asked for somebody to take a picture. I don’t know who did besides me but I suspect there were other people, because phones abound. 

“So there’s this picture of her lying on the floor. We have a committee text page. 11 people, that’s the exposure, and that’s where it was supposed to end up. 

“So about a week later I’m fiddling around my phone and try to substitute a beach, so you would have this individual not lying on an ugly rug but lying on a beautiful beach, right? When I tried to transfer the picture of the individual….[it removed the rug background, but did not replace it with anything. The photo thus depicts] somebody that looks like they were floating around in space posing somehow. 

“Yeah it was weird. I realized right away. I tried to get it back but that exceeded my ability to manipulate a computer.”

That’s when things took a very awkward turn. 

 “The conversation I think in the committee got to the sexual harassment thing, because you created,  you know, an uncomfortable work environment but the bottom line was what got published was the picture itself.”

VDC asked Hooper: did the photo have a sexually suggestive vibe?

 “I can’t say that it did,” Hooper said. “I mean, you know, it’s a woman in a dress laying on the floor. They alluded to the fact that I had turned it into something sexual by taking the background out. That’s how they got to sexual harassment.”

10 months and a panel finding later, Hooper finds himself a former lawmaker kicked off a committee and asked to resign the House by his caucus peers.