In Springfield, there’s a time-honored way to deal with a crisis and give the impression that lawmakers are doing something without their actually having to do anything at all.
Form a working group.
That way, you can buy some time until (hopefully) everyone moves on.
Last year, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch convened working groups on property taxes and pensions. Not much actually changed.
Welch’s most recent iteration is a new “culture and accountability” working group. And the wheels are already falling off.
Welch is known for his preference to form these Democrat-only private groups, and this one is no different — except that two of the Democrats Welch asked to join the group have declined.
State Rep. Gregg Johnson, an East Moline Democrat, told Capitol News Illinois he was uncomfortable with the makeup of the group given that some members had already gone public with their position on Welch’s handling of the recent House sexual harassment scandal surrounding disgraced former state Rep. Harry Benton.
The other Democrat to RSVP no? State Rep. Kelly Cassidy of Chicago, who has said she was concerned it could amount to little more than a PR stunt.
Gov. JB Pritzker has also expressed skepticism that a working group is a satisfactory way to resolve this problem (ya think, Gov?), pointing out that these groups often drag on and on.
“There is no time here. There are already models for dealing with this in other states,” he said at an Aug. 7 press conference.
Based on Tribune reporting, which paints a thorough picture of what happened, we can get a sense of where to start looking. The young staffer who alleged harassment from Benton reported the behavior to Welch’s chief of staff in April 2023. She was encouraged to take her allegations to the Legislative Inspector General but declined, telling the Tribune she feared formally pursuing the complaint could permanently damage her job prospects.
Since Welch appears set on the working group idea, we’ll share what we think the first matter of exploration ought to be: Why did a young woman who knew there was a system for reporting harassment feel that merely using it might well ruin her career?
But let’s back up a bit here. For a working group to be successful it needs clear marching orders, the right people at the table — that would be some combination of lawmakers from both parties, victims and longtime staffers who know the Springfield culture — and a tight deadline.
Then there is at least a shot of answering the most salient question: Why don’t women in Springfield feel safe coming forward with serious harassment concerns?
Employees at good private-sector companies can take a harassment complaint to human resources without fear of losing their job. Clearly, Springfield needs something like that. As distinct from another open-ended exercise in brainstorming ideas.
Welch has floated the notion of centralizing human resources operations in the House. Maybe some element of HR-style reform is part of the answer, but Springfield shouldn’t build another bureaucracy before identifying what the current system couldn’t — or failed to — do this time. Staffers already have multiple avenues for reporting harassment outside their immediate supervisor, including the Legislative Inspector General and Illinois Department of Human Rights, as well as the state’s Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Helpline.
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The problem, in other words, may not be that employees lack somewhere to go, but that they don’t sufficiently trust what will happen to them once they go there.
No system can guarantee that an accused lawmaker won’t deduce who complained, but Statehouse employees should be able to report harassment with reasonable confidence that doing so won’t cost them their careers.
We asked Pritzker’s team what he had in mind when he pointed to other states.
One example to which Pritzker’s team pointed (although it noted the governor does not necessarily endorse these particular ideas) is giving regular citizens more involvement in oversight, as Washington state does. Their Legislative Ethics Board includes five public members in addition to four lawmakers. Giving citizens a majority gives the public adequate weight and authority over serious ethics matters. Making such a change in Illinois surely would be an effective safeguard against lawmakers protecting bad actors with whom they are chummy.
One obvious challenge to transparency here comes from policies in place that could’ve prevented us from learning about the issues with Benton in the first place.
The LIG’s Benton report easily could have remained secret.
Illinois law requires the Legislative Ethics Commission to publish certain reports involving serious employee discipline, but gives the commission discretion over publication of other reports — including one like Benton’s. Because Benton resigned before the report was completed, its release was not mandatory. Had the commission declined to publish it, the report could have remained confidential indefinitely. That gives a small panel of legislators substantial power over whether the public learns what an ethics investigation found. That’s a big problem.
The Pritzker administration also highlighted Rhode Island, which has rules in place to ensure efficient investigations. Its ethics commission is generally required to complete an investigation within 180 days, allowing for no more than two 60-day extensions when the situation warrants it.
Several states also provide longer windows for certain complaints or ethics enforcement. Alaska generally allows legislative ethics complaints involving conduct within the previous five years, while Oregon gives workers five years to file certain employment-discrimination complaints. Illinois allows two years for state civil-rights complaints, while the LIG generally has just a year to initiate an investigation.
These are the types of targeted changes Illinois could consider once lawmakers know precisely what they’re trying to fix — the kinds of ideas a solid working group should be debating and evaluating.
“It takes all of us to change a culture,” Welch said in an Aug. 5 interview with Capitol News Illinois. “Everyone that sees something should say something. We should have an environment where people are comfortable to say something, and it’s not going to be fixed by one person alone.”
Correct.
The instinct to analyze what happened with Benton and where the system fell short is the right first step. Only once we know where the breakdowns occurred can we understand what needs to change.
Give the working group that mission, a firm deadline, the right people at the table and the ideas Pritzker pointed to as a place to start.
Then let’s see the work. And the results.
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