On April 28, 2008, Sarah Schacht received an email that terrified her. The Sunlight Foundation, a government transparency group, had invited Schacht, the head of a budding good-government nonprofit, to join a conference call. There on the invitation list was Clay Johnson a man she says once tried to rape her.

Reeling, Schacht called a friend at Sunlight, who told her the foundation had just hired Johnson. Within an hour, she said, she was on the phone with Sunlights executive director, Ellen Miller.

Schacht said Miller received her story with a stern voice and a battery of excuses: Well, Im sure there was some confusion, it was so long ago, he was so young at the time, and now hes in this great relationship, Schacht recalls Miller saying. In her disbelief, Schacht blurted out that she wasnt Johnsons only victim, but that didnt seem to faze Miller either. I left the phone call shaking, Schacht said.

Although Miller insists no such call ever happened, the conversation Schacht remembers must have been repeated many times. For more than a decade, women have accused Johnson, a leader in the world of political technology, of physical and verbal abuse. Theyve complained to some of the most powerful people in Washingtons nonprofit and progressive circles only to watch, horrified, as Johnson became a powerful figure, too.

During Johnsons first job in politics, on Howard Deans 2004 presidential campaign, Schacht and a fellow campaign worker separately accused Johnson of sexual assault. Word of both womens complaints reached several of Deans top deputies. But Johnson kept his job, and his work on the campaign became his ticket to a high-profile career.

He went on to co-found a pathbreaking political consulting firm. Powerful groups and people sought his thoughts on the future of tech in politics; his Twitter banner shows him cracking a joke to a roomful of government officials including President Barack Obama . Despite Schachts warning about his behavior, the Sunlight Foundation chose him to head its flagship technology division. He left amid a staff insurrection over his lewd and menacing behavior. And still, he rose higher.

His reputation seemed to be an open secret.

People would go, Oh yeah, thats Clay, said Erie Meyer, a tech worker who said Johnson harassed her at a 2013 conference. And Im thinking, How have you all been letting him wander the halls of progressive power and know hes like this?

HuffPost spoke with more than two dozen of Johnsons former supervisors, peers and colleagues, many of whom talked on the record, in search of an explanation. The answer implicates not only Johnson as a serial abuser but a constellation of progressive and good-government groups that failed to put their values into action. On the eve of the most consequential midterm election in a decade, it also raises grave questions about how prepared politicians are to protect the people who get them elected. Nearly 20,000 people will work in the local and national campaigns this year, and as many as 5 percent of all registered voters will volunteer. Should they face harassment or abuse, few of them will have any recourse.

We just pass creeps from campaign to campaign, said Meg Reilly, vice president of the Campaign Workers Guild, a new union seeking to organize political workers across the country. The excuse becomes, Well deal with this once the candidate gets elected. People tell themselves that if theyre working for this candidate whos really fantastic, who opposes sexism and racism, then everyone on the campaign is immune from committing the same sins. Once the election ends, little prevents abusive employees from starting a second act in government, political advocacy or nonprofits.

Johnson, in interviews with HuffPost, described his history in the workplace as awful and said it filled him with shame, hurt and regret, although he disputed the details of most of his accusers stories.

I dont know the answer to that, he said when asked if he had sexually assaulted two women on the Dean campaign. What I can tell you is, I had two women complain to management on the Dean campaign about sexual harassment, and I was given a warning. Later, he said his memory of his encounter with Schacht didnt include anything he would describe as assault.

My entire career was littered with treating people very poorly, he continued. Whether that was the Sunlight Foundation, the Dean campaign, or anywhere else I worked. I did not behave appropriately. I was awful to people, to nearly every single person, and I really wish I hadnt been.