OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Minority House Republicans, already reeling from a sex scandal that prompted one member to quit, have severely disciplined a Vancouver lawmaker for inappropriate remarks to a female staffer.

Rep. Jim Dunn was stripped of all committee assignments on Monday, and will be required to attend sensitivity training, said House Minority Leader Richard DeBolt, R-Chehalis. Dunn had been the ranking Republican on the Housing Committee, and sat on the powerful House spending committee.

The House's chief clerk also has decided to restrict Dunn's reimbursements for travel and expenses, a decision that DeBolt said he supported.

"We know that society has moved beyond off-color remarks between men and women," DeBolt said Monday evening. "We're big kids, so we need to act like that."

The strength of the discipline raised the possibility that Dunn could resign. DeBolt noted that leadership can't kick a member out of the Legislature, "so we had to look at what we could do as a caucus. And this was what we needed to do."

He added: "Jim has the ability to make his decisions on how he deals with this from here on out."

Dunn, reached at home Monday evening, said he had not read DeBolt's letter of reprimand. Dunn said he had no plans to resign.

Dunn said he already has apologized to the woman who was the target of his remark, which came at a gathering after a House Appropriations subcommittee meeting in the Tri-Cities last week.

Dunn also said he could not exactly recall what he said to the woman, but said he was "sure it was very inappropriate, because I do that kind of thing." He also acknowledged it could have been interpreted as sexual harassment.

"I was a little bit upset about something that had happened a little earlier in the day. I was a little sharp with this young lady, and I shouldn't have been," Dunn said.

Dunn also told The Columbian of Vancouver that he couldn't recall exactly what he said to the woman, but that it was along the lines of "I bought you a drink because I want to take you home," the newspaper reported.

The discipline comes less than a week after former Rep. Richard Curtis, R-La Center, resigned amid a sex scandal that erupted following a Republican legislative retreat in Spokane.

Curtis, who is married and has voted against gay-rights legislation, complained to police that he was being blackmailed by a man he had sex with in his hotel room.

Dunn represented the 17th District from 1996 through 2002, then was elected again in 2004 and 2006. The district covers east Vancouver and other parts of Clark County.