Three years ago, a young female staffer came forward with allegations of harassment, often sexual in nature, against former state Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield.
The former staffer’s allegations were part of Illinois Legislative Inspector General Michael McCuskey’s investigation into Benton, who resigned July 3.
McCuskey’s investigation ultimately ended Benton’s Springfield career. But concerns about his conduct were documented years before the public knew anything about them. After the 2023 complaint, Benton wasn’t interviewed by House leadership for an astounding three months, by which point the staffer had already quit her job, according to Tribune reporting.
House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s office says “appropriate action was taken” but has refused to say what that action was.
The former staffer told the Tribune that Benton was not disciplined.
This was not the only complaint regarding Benton, either. The Tribune also reported that the complaint that ultimately prompted McCuskey’s investigation followed an alleged encounter earlier this year between Benton and a female lobbyist at a River North bar. According to this separate complaint, Benton made a string of inappropriate remarks and showed her pictures of women with whom he claimed to have had sexual liaisons.
She alleged that Benton told her, “You’re too hot to be a lobbyist.” We won’t repeat some of the other reported comments, which paint a picture of an elected official whose treatment of women is not befitting of someone in this office.
The timeline pieced together indicates that concerns about Benton’s behavior were documented for years before anything became public, despite Welch’s insistence that his office took “appropriate action.”
But that first complaint happened in 2023. If the complaint was handled as seriously as Welch’s office now claims, why did it take so long for any action?
Did state lawmakers take these women seriously?
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And — weren’t we just here?
In 2018, former campaign worker Alaina Hampton filed allegations against Kevin Quinn, a loyal operative of longtime House speaker Mike Madigan — and Hampton’s supervisor. She provided loads of messages from Quinn, who repeatedly pressured her to go out with him and made frequent comments about her physical appearance. “I think about you all the time,” he told her, adding, “You are smoking hot.”
Former Legislative Inspector General Carol Pope substantiated Hampton’s allegations. In November 2019, Hampton reached a $275,000 settlement with Madigan-controlled political committees, without any admission of wrongdoing.
Hampton first reported Quinn’s behavior to a senior figure in Madigan’s organization in February 2017. Quinn was not fired until roughly a year later, after Hampton spoke with the Tribune. When Madigan resigned in 2021, in addition to his impending corruption scandal, the Hampton story hung over him — and his party — like a black cloud.
We were left with an image of a Democratic Party-controlled Springfield in which politicians who professed to champion women tolerated their mistreatment.
When Welch succeeded Madigan as speaker, one of his most important tasks was to make sure Springfield and the Democrats changed their ways and cleaned up their image. He promised a different future.
It is not looking so different at present.
“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 told the Tribune.
The Benton allegations also follow other high-profile recent misconduct allegations involving Democrats, notably former U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner of Maine, reinforcing the former staffer’s point.
The Tribune reported Monday that Gov. JB Pritzker called for Springfield to release the Benton report. They should also come clean on the whole story.
Specifically, Welch owes the public a detailed explanation of how his office handled the 2023 complaint, why Benton was not interviewed for three months and what “appropriate action” was taken. He himself said McCuskey’s findings revealed “clear patterns of conduct” that are “outrageous, unethical, and unbecoming of a member of the Illinois House of Representatives.”
Pritzker alluded to the ability of a lawmaker who resigns to evade a full public reckoning.
“I think that one of the reasons, though, that (Benton) may have chosen to resign is because … a report can’t be released about somebody that’s not in the legislature anymore,” Pritzker said at an unrelated press conference July 6.
That’s not an option. Based on the legislative inspector general’s reported findings, Benton and the Democrats cannot be allowed to skate past this. If Benton’s resignation prevents full disclosure, lawmakers should immediately change the statute so elected officials cannot bury an inspector general’s findings merely by resigning before discipline is formally imposed.
Benton’s departure also leaves Democrats scrambling to replace their nominee in one of the state’s more competitive House districts. That is a political problem of their own making.
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In his resignation letter, Benton wrote that the “matter has placed tremendous strain on my family since it began in late February. As we move forward into the next chapter of our lives, I respectfully ask that our privacy be honored.”
We have no doubt this has been an ordeal for the former lawmaker’s wife and children. If the reported conduct is borne out by McCuskey’s findings, the responsibility for the harm to Benton’s family lies with Benton, not with the women who came forward or the public seeking answers.
Eight years after the Madigan and Hampton scandal, Illinois Democrats should have known — and done — better.
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