A Springfield commission voted Thursday to release a state government watchdog’s report on the conduct of a disgraced suburban lawmaker who resigned earlier this month after a series of sexual harassment allegations.
The legislative inspector general’s report on ex-state Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield, is expected to be made public by the end of the month, following the unanimous vote from the General Assembly’s bipartisan Legislative Ethics Commission.
Calls for its release have grown in the wake of last week’s Chicago Tribune report that Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch learned of a previous allegation against Benton three years before the one that prompted Welch to remove Benton from their Democratic caucus in February.
This month, Welch made a point of noting that he demanded Benton’s resignation within “an hour” of receiving the report from Legislative Inspector General Mike McCuskey on the sealed allegations against the representative.
Benton stepped down July 3, but hasn’t addressed the allegations — or given up his $72,000-per-year elected post as Wheatland Township highway commissioner.
A lobbyist told the Tribune that Benton made lewd comments to her at a River North bar in February, and her complaint to the LIG prompted Welch to take action in February. But in 2023, Welch’s office waited months to probe a separate complaint against Benton and didn’t take any meaningful action.
Welch, who took the speaker’s gavel in the wake of now-federally convicted Michael Madigan in 2021, later made a Benton complainant uncomfortable with his use of heart-eye faces and other emojis in response to social media posts, she told the Tribune.
“The Legislative Inspector General’s independent investigation into former Representative Benton provides a full and accurate account of the steps my office took to support those who came forward,” Welch said in a statement Wednesday. “My colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus and I have been clear that the report should be released while taking any necessary steps to protect the privacy and dignity of the innocent people who spoke out. Today’s vote is a positive step for accountability and transparency, and I look forward to the full report being released this month.”
Republicans have painted the harassment scandal as a repeat of history in Democratic-controlled Springfield, where Madigan’s reign began crumbling after revelations of mishandled harassment complaints within his political organization.
“When Speaker Welch first took the gavel, he promised a ‘new day,’” the House Republican Organization said in a statement. “Yet despite those promises of reform, it is becoming increasingly clear that they are ringing hollow.”
“Thank you to the members of the Legislative Ethics Commission for doing the right thing: transparency is key for us to move forward, understand how we can improve, and to demand accountability for those who failed to uphold the integrity of our chamber,” House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, we may never know what happened before this report due to the silence of leaders who have repeatedly chosen politics over principles.”
It all poses the greatest threat yet to Welch’s hold on the gavel. The House Democratic Women’s Caucus issued a statement Wednesday calling for the report’s release and more stringent anti-harassment measures from Welch.
“When anyone reports harassment or abuse, leadership must act swiftly to investigate the matter and support the person who came forward,” caucus members 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.”
At an unrelated news conference Wednesday, Gov. JB Pritzker left it up to House members to “make a decision about whether he should be their leader going forward.”
“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.
Benton and the complainant will be able to review the report, suggest redactions and provide responses to the commission, which “intends to have this process completed by July 31.”