MOORE’S SUMMARY: Gov. JB Pritzker said on Wednesday that House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch has “a responsibility to be utterly and completely transparent” about his handling of sexual harassment allegations made against ex-Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield. But the governor sidestepped when asked if he still had confidence in Welch’s leadership, saying that “this is a matter for the House to deal with itself.”
OWN UP: “Now, the speaker has a responsibility to be utterly and completely transparent about the situation, to make sure that he is letting the public know, as well as, in particular, his members, know exactly what happened, and to the extent that he made mistakes, to own up to those mistakes,” Pritzker said.
It was the governor’s first media availability since a bombshell Chicago Tribune report published last week revealed that Welch’s office knew for years about sexual harassment allegations made against Benton, who resigned earlier this month.
According to the Tribune report, a former district office staffer of Benton’s outlined a series of harassment allegations against the Plainfield Democrat to Welch’s office in April 2023. But the speaker’s top staff did not interview Benton until three months later, after the staffer had already left the job and declined to file a report with the legislative inspector general’s office. Benton denied the allegations at the time.
The Welch-controlled House Democratic campaign arm went on to spend $1.4 million reelect Benton, a tier-one target, in 2024. He wasn’t booted from the caucus and stripped of committee assignments until February of this year, after an incident with a female lobbyist at Chicago bar. A complaint was filed with the LIG and, upon its completion of a founded report in July, Welch asked for and received Benton’s resignation.
‘OUTRAGED’: Pritzker added that he’s “outraged” by Benton’s behavior as well as the alleged actions of Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, who was indicted last week on federal charges alleging she orchestrated a scheme to receive illegal cash kickbacks from her campaign account and local nonprofits for which she helped secure state grant funding.
“We live in a state where we have for too long had a history of corruption that needed to be rooted out, and it is being rooted out, but never fast enough, and never, in my view, investigated enough or reported enough,” Pritzker said.
Regarding Benton, Pritzker said he “would want to wring this person’s neck if they did this to my daughter.” He also repeated his call for the LIG report to be released.
DAMAGE CONTROL: Since the release of the Tribune story, which also outlined social media interactions Welch had with Benton’s ex-staffer that made her feel uncomfortable, the speaker and his staff have been seeking to contain the fallout.
This week, Welch met virtually with members of the House Democratic Women’s Caucus and the moderate New Democrats Caucus as well as his leadership team. He also held meetings with members of the Asian, Black and Latino subcaucuses.
According to a member present on a couple of those calls, Welch acknowledged that his social media interactions, which included using emojis with heart-shaped eyes to respond to the woman’s Instagram stories, were not proper and that he pledged to change. It had become fodder for a House Republican digital attack ad.
Questions were also raised about Welch’s continued financial support for Benton in the 2024 campaign despite his office’s knowledge of the allegations the previous year. It was noted that Welch supported challengers to incumbent Reps. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, and Cyril Nichols, D-Chicago, that same election cycle.
It was also pointed out that not acting on the allegation could have put more women on staff at risk of being victims of sexual harassment.
There was, however, an effort to move forward. Welch and his team asked members to publicly call for the release of Legislative Inspector General Mike McCuskey’s report. They even provided boilerplate language for members to use to respond to media inquiries.
And some members, especially those in the Black Caucus, sought to move the conversation away from what Welch did or didn’t do in the Benton case and towards forward-looking reforms meant to ensure better procedures are in place in the future.
HDEMS WOMEN: In a statement released Wednesday, the Illinois House Democratic Women’s Caucus called for the release of McCuskey’s report but said that that alone wasn’t enough.
“When anyone reports harassment or abuse, leadership must act swiftly to investigate the matter and support the person who came forward,” the 46-member caucus wrote. “Simply referring a complainant to the Legislative Inspector General is insufficient — and if the person who reported the harassment chooses not to pursue that route, leadership must take further action to protect others in the workplace.”
“We support the calls to release the Benton LIG report, redacted to protect those who came forward,” they continued. “But releasing one report is not enough. We must expand and strengthen how harassment is reported and investigated and how victims are supported, and we must begin that work immediately.”
MOVING FORWARD: When asked if Welch should resign as speaker, Pritzker — the de facto leader of the state’s Democratic Party — said that question was not for him to answer but for the members of the House Democratic caucus.
“I believe that these members of the House, they don’t want their House to be besmirched by the things that the members have done, that they’ve been caught doing, or by a failure of leadership,” Pritzker said. “And so they will have that discussion with their leader, and they’ll make a decision about whether he should be their leader going forward.”
WHAT’S NEXT? The Legislative Ethics Commission will meet in private on Thursday. They could vote to release the LIG’s report. But as we’ve reported previously, it wouldn’t happen right away since Benton and McCuskey each have the right to review the documents before they are made public.
Also don’t be surprised to see legislation emerge to address some of the issues exposed by this situation. Though anything would likely have to wait until veto session later this year.
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