As we creep ever closer to the Nov. 3 elections — early voting in Chicago begins Sept. 24 — a new, urgent issue for Illinois Democrats has emerged along with the familiar ones of affordability, housing, taxes and crime.
That’s what to do about Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch. The speaker is under fire for his handling of serious sexual harassment allegations against now-former state Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield.
So far, avoidance seems to be a popular approach, but it’s not one voters should tolerate.
Every Democratic candidate for the Illinois House should be prepared to answer two simple questions: Should Welch remain speaker, and what will you do to strengthen protections against sexual harassment in state government?
Jessica Dixon Heitman, who was appointed to fill Benton’s seat, has indicated she’ll welcome cash from Welch and Democrats. Her campaign has said it’s “premature” to weigh in on whether Welch should continue in his leadership role until she gets her bearings in the Capitol.
Premature? Dixon Heitman worked briefly in Benton’s office and has said she saw plenty of “red flags” during her tenure. Given that experience, voters have every reason to ask how she assesses the speaker’s handling of the Benton allegations and her confidence in his ability to lead.
Illinois Legislative Inspector General Michael McCuskey provided the details in a report released late last month that identified a “pattern and practice of sexual harassment occurring during the entirety of Harry Benton’s career as a member of the General Assembly.” Alongside the former staffer’s complaints were other reports of Benton interacting inappropriately with a female lobbyist, showing her lewd photos on his phone of women with whom he claimed to have had sexual liaisons. The lobbyist also alleged Benton told her, “You’re too hot to be a lobbyist,” and made other — even cruder — comments we won’t repeat here, painting a picture of an elected official whose treatment of women should have been disqualifying for most any workplace let alone the state legislature.
Welch’s office knew of problems with Benton in 2023 after Benton’s female staffer came forward with allegations of harassment, often sexual in nature. Benton wasn’t interviewed by House leadership for months — after the staffer had already resigned.
In 2024, Welch boosted Benton’s campaign with $1.4 million. The reason? The speaker said he didn’t want to lose union support by failing to adequately support Benton, a union ironworker.
By the way, we know all of this because of original Tribune reporting. It doesn’t reflect well on Welch, who’s made the rounds with media on an “apology tour” of sorts in recent days, that he has so far declined to talk with the Tribune reporters who shed so much light on this situation.
Democrats will likely spend heavily on Dixon Heitman’s campaign against a tough Republican opponent in Gabby Shanahan. We understand Dixon Heitman’s pragmatism up to a point, but we don’t think punting on the question of Welch’s future is a justifiable position for her.
The question is simple: Are you going to vote “yes” for someone who knew about Benton’s problems, kept them under wraps for nearly three years and financially supported his reelection anyway?
It’s a proxy for an even more basic question: Are you willing to compromise your ethics for money?
As Shanahan put it in an Aug. 6 press release, “After everything that has happened, silence is not an acceptable answer.” Exactly.
Illinois Democrats fail to reckon with these questions at their own peril. This is the second major sexual misconduct scandal the party has faced in less than a decade.
Alaina Hampton, the whistleblower at the heart of the 2018 sexual harassment story that helped eventually to topple Speaker Michael Madigan, has continued to voice her concerns about Springfield’s culture of acceptance of misbehavior and leadership’s tendency to stifle victims’ concerns.
“Laws do not change culture on their own; people in positions of power do. That is why leadership matters,” she wrote Aug. 3 in these pages.
The rise of Welch as Madigan’s successor brought with it cautious hope that the old ways would be rightly cast aside in favor of ushering in a renewed commitment to ethics and, at minimum, better treatment of the women who work in Springfield.
Part of what’s so devastating about the Benton story is that the Madigan-era scandal is so recent — less than a decade old. Once again, as we lamented last month, we’re left with a Democratic Party whose leadership purports to champion women while their actions prove otherwise.
“Other incidents definitely happened while I was working in politics and it doesn’t stop with Harry Benton and it didn’t stop after Madigan,” the former Benton staffer, who made the initial allegations in 2023, told the Tribune.
We have no doubt.
We keep going back to Welch’s argument that his desire for continued union support led him to continue backing a deeply flawed Benton. That’s a serious red flag. Should money compromise morals and basic ethics?
Any Democratic candidate who hopes to head down to Springfield must be willing to level with voters on where they stand. Will they fight for stronger ethics and a Democratic Party that demands better? Or will they fall in line?
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