■ Former Congresswoman Mary Bono shares stories of sexual harassment.

WASHINGTON — Former congresswoman Mary Bono knows sexual harassment is rampant on Capitol Hill because she experienced it firsthand.

“My first year, first or second year in the Congress, I was accused of having an affair with Newt Gingrich. It was on the front page of The National Enquirer,” she recalled.

She said she “had this little awakening that it existed,” but she said women back then never thought they could change the culture of sexual harassment on the Hill.

“I don’t even think we realized how much we had just accepted it as a culture,” she said.

But now as a backlash against harassment washes over the Hill — and the rest of America — some women who served in Congress over the last four decades spoke to Roll Call about that culture as they knew it.

Bono came to Congress in 1998 to replace her husband, then-California Rep. Sonny Bono, who was killed in a skiing accident. The Republican was a 37-year-old mother of two young children.

With women who worked on Capitol Hill stepping forward to share their stories of sexual harassment, Bono said it’s a watershed moment.

Her advice to women considering running for Congress: Make sure you have thick skin.

“However thick it is, it’s still not going to be thick enough, because they are going to get under your skin and they are going to try to get you spinning and get you off your game and hurt you and get people talking,” Bono said. “It’s hard to explain to people what that feels like and what it’s like to endure that.”

Mary Bono