'People are sick and tired of' politicians receiving a different set of rules: Democratic congresswoman calls on John Conyers to resign

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• Rep. Kathleen Rice is calling on Rep. John Conyers to immediately resign amid sexual misconduct allegations.
• Conyers has vowed to stay in Congress and comply with the investigation by the House Ethics Committee.

New York Rep. Kathleen Rice, a Democrat, is calling on her colleague Rep. John Conyers to resign amid reports of sexual misconduct and an undisclosed settlement with an accuser.

On CNN Friday morning, Rice said the problem with Conyers simply complying with an ethics investigation was insignificant accountability when compared to other cases of sexual misconduct by high profile public figures.

"Compare what happened to Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Mark Halperin - all appropriate consequences," Rice said. "And then once we start getting into to the reality of politicians, well let's get the Ethics Commission into it and let's investigate this and take forever to come up with a conclusion."

"So I think that's what people are sick and tired of," she added. "Rules in Washington for people like me being different than they are for other people."

And Rice's issue with just an investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which is already underway, is that they rarely produce any results. Rice, a former prosecutor, also noted that lawmakers like Conyers are unlikely to ever face real ramifications for their actions.

"This is not beyond a reasonable doubt," she said. "We don't have any legal standard here. We're talking about the court of public opinion. We're talking about holding men accountable for their actions and a lot of these men, against whom these allegations have been made, are never going to face their day in court."

Rice said in a statement on Wednesday that the allegations against Conyers, which include unwanted sexual advances on a female staffer, "are as credible as they are repulsive."

So far, Rice is the only House Democrat calling on Conyers to immediately resign, while others are suggesting he at least step down from his post as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

But Conyers has been defiant. Arnold Reed, the 88-year-old Democrat's attorney, told CNN that "Mr. Conyers is not going to resign."

"If everybody that was facing 'allegations' - including the President, members of the House and Senate - resigned, we'd have a lot of unemployed people walking around," Reed said.