Following the release on Friday of the Illinois legislative inspector general’s long-awaited investigatory report concluding that disgraced former state Rep. Harry Benton’s sexual harassment of women violated state law, there were two notable, and pointedly opposite, responses.
One was from a young woman, a former Benton staffer who in April 2023 sent House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s chief of staff a lengthy list of harassment allegations, many of a sexual nature, only to learn after she left the job two months later that no action was taken against Benton at the time.
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She said she abandoned what she had hoped would be a career in politics and government after “watching leaders I admired put their own desires before the work for the people who elected them.”
“Let me be clear: sexual harassment is not a lapse in judgment. It is not something to be swept under the rug. It is an abuse of power, an abuse of the trust that voters place in that office,” she wrote in response to the report.
The other response came in a statement from the embattled Democratic House speaker who, a year after his office first received the sexual harassment complaint, spent $1.4 million to help get Benton reelected. He finally took action to oust him from the House Democratic caucus in February of this year after a lobbyist complained of sexual harassment. On Friday, the report revealed another complaint from a legislative staffer who said Benton acted “creepy” toward her at a Springfield bar in 2025.
“This report reaffirms confidence that our office acted responsibly — following legal guidance, respecting the wishes of those who came forward, and taking decisive action as additional information established a pattern of misconduct,” was Welch’s interpretation of the report, which did not adjudge his actions.
Welch said, “If there are gaps in our policies, our laws, or our workplace practices, then it is our duty to close them.”
But there was only one real gap — inaction on the young former Benton staffer’s complaint of mistreatment by a lawmaker until three years had passed and two other women were harassed to establish the “pattern of misconduct” in order for Welch to take “decisive action.”
Or, as state Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a Chicago Democrat who sits on the Legislative Ethics Commission, put it, “Had the speaker intervened meaningfully in 2023, he may have been able to prevent the victimization of the other two women, who were harassed in May 2025 and January 2026, respectively.”
“Instead,” she added, “$1.4 million was spent to reelect Benton to his seat in 2024.”
Welch has found himself and his leadership under increasing scrutiny since the Tribune, following a monthslong investigation, provided details showing the speaker’s office was aware of Benton’s harassment three years before he took any disciplinary action.
The inheritor of a speakership due, in part, to how veteran House Speaker Michael Madigan handled a #MeToo scandal involving harassment issues among his staff, Welch has spent weeks working to maintain support among his 78-member House Democratic caucus majority.
Only days ago, he reached out to another constituency, the politically active Chicago Teachers Union, going so far as to promise to lead an effort to provide additional state funding to Chicago Public Schools to avoid layoffs and a budgetary shortfall, a promise that preceded the passage of a CPS budget anticipating $150 million in state dollars. Such a commitment, without new tax revenues to also benefit other public schools in the state, is politically unlikely. It also puts Welch at odds with Gov. JB Pritzker, the de facto leader of the state’s Democrats.
But Welch has largely stayed out of the public eye, appearing at recent events for the National Conference of State Legislatures’ convention in Chicago but avoiding reporters’ questions about his handling of the Benton situation.
While some Democrats said privately that Welch is hoping the release of the report will allow the issue to blow over, his lack of public availability is likely to only increase the scrutiny heading into a highly political election season that kicks off with Democrat Day at the Illinois State Fair later in August.
Still unanswered is whether Welch even confronted Benton after his office received the staffer’s initial complaint. Welch also has told various Democratic caucuses that the staffer didn’t want Benton questioned until after she left her job. She told the Tribune she didn’t recall saying that.
Legislative Inspector General Mike McCuskey’s narrative makes it clear it was a decision by the speaker’s office, not the wishes of the staffer, that Benton be questioned three months after she filed her original complaint.
“The Chief of Staff and the Ethics Officer for the Speaker’s Office decided to confront Benton with these allegations after the district employee resigned in June 2023 to avoid retaliation by Benton if he found out who filed the complaint,” McCuskey wrote.
Welch has also told Democratic caucuses that the staffer didn’t want to “pursue” actions against Benton. But she said she did not want to follow the only option Welch’s office gave her on multiple occasions — that she file a complaint with the legislative inspector general’s office because she did not want to become a political pariah and jeopardize being hired for other government jobs. She said she expected Welch’s office to handle her complaints in-house.
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Regardless, the staffer told Welch’s office in emails that she wanted to make sure no woman would have to deal with the harassment she received from Benton.
Cassidy, in a statement, questioned how Welch could say he was respecting the wishes of the victims when he turned over to the legislative inspector general the complaints of the former Benton staffer despite her not wanting to pursue a complaint through that route.
“We can debate whether or not her wishes should have been respected — but the argument the speaker has been making, which is that he took no action for nearly three years out of respect for her wishes, does not hold up to scrutiny,” Cassidy said.
“The speaker must demonstrate a sincere desire to repair the harm he has done, and to correct the broken system in which we are all operating,” the lawmaker continued. “To date, that has not been the spirit of his response. Instead, we have heard a series of excuses, victim blaming and a failure to publicly acknowledge shortcomings. That has been disappointing.”
Democratic state Rep. Anne Stava of Naperville said she was “absolutely appalled” by what she read in the report about the sexual harassment allegations against Benton, including that “absolutely nothing was done as a consequence for his clearly documented sexual harassment behavior in 2023.” She also said Welch’s handling of the situation was “deeply troubling.”
“I have been a fierce advocate of Speaker Welch, and I’m incredibly disappointed that he’s put me in the position to speak out, because there are victims here,” Stava said. “And the victims are the people that I care about, and not my comfort and not the comfort of someone in power who did nothing to help victims.”
When asked whether she supports Welch as speaker, she said, “I would say that we as a body have some thinking to do about our leadership.”
Stava also had strong words for her female colleagues.
“I’m incredibly disappointed in the women in the House that have not spoken up on this issue,” she said. “This is a women’s issue, and all women should be speaking up.”
Pritzker, who had urged Welch to go public with an explanation of his actions, said “it is clear the General Assembly has more work to do” and that the House “now has a responsibility to resolve any unanswered questions, strengthen its harassment prevention and reporting procedures, and hold itself to the high standard the people of Illinois expect and deserve.”
Juliana Stratton, the Democrats’ U.S. Senate nominee and the first Black woman to hold statewide office, as Pritzker’s lieutenant governor, appeared to criticize the actions of Welch, the state’s first Black speaker of the House.
“Everyone deserves to feel safe and respected in the workplace. When that is not the case, reports of harassment must be taken seriously and investigated promptly,” Stratton said in a statement. “This is now an opportunity for the House to construct and implement a stronger and more accessible path to workplace safety and accountability.”
Another Democrat, state Rep. Nicolle Grasse of Arlington Heights, said in a text that the report “reflects a pattern of bad behavior that we cannot ignore.”
“That means taking a hard look at our processes and strengthening them so they are timely, transparent, and genuinely trauma-informed,” Grasse said.
Republicans, who are a 40-member minority in the 118-member House, have sought to capitalize on criticism over Welch’s handling of the Benton case and point to it as an example of the excesses of one-party Democratic rule in Illinois.
House Republican leader Tony McCombie of Savanna called on Welch to resign and on Pritzker to call for his resignation.
“Why would he spend $1.4 million defending a flawed member instead of acting on the first complaint?” McCombie said of Welch. “Why risk the integrity of the institution to protect a seat that would never have changed the Democratic supermajority?”
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“Every House Democrat now has a choice. They can stand behind Speaker Welch, or they can stand for the integrity of the Illinois House. But they cannot do both,” she also said.