SPRINGFIELD — Democrats celebrated their one-party political dominance at the Illinois State Fair heading into the fall campaign season on Wednesday, but their cheers fell against the backdrop of recent House scandals that have sullied their brand.
Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s controversial handling of former state Rep. Harry Benton’s sexual harassment of three women, including a former staffer, has left the chamber’s leader grasping to keep control and facing Republican criticism.
There was also last month’s indictment of 11-year Democratic state Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana on corruption charges, along with her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, a Democrat, involving state grant fraud.
For the actual Democrat Day festivities featuring party leaders, candidates and officeholders, Welch was a notable no-show.
An aide explained the Hillside lawmaker was accompanying his child to their first day of school. But Welch was in Springfield the day before for scheduled appearances that included hosting a fundraiser for himself and making brief remarks at an Illinois Democratic Women’s event.
Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker — seeking reelection in November while also eyeing a potential 2028 White House campaign — welcomed Democrats to the fair by excoriating Republican President Donald Trump, saying “what he and his MAGA Republicans are doing to this nation is disgraceful.”
“By the way, this is the government that Darren Bailey rooted for. This is the vision that he and his Illinois Republicans want to impose on working families across Illinois,” Pritzker, the billionaire businessman and heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune, who recently pumped $65 million into his reelection campaign, said of his second consecutive race against his GOP opponent, former state lawmaker Darren Bailey.
The featured speaker at the Democrats’ most heavily attended event, the annual county chairpersons brunch at the downtown convention center, was U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Warren has blasted the party’s reliance on catering to billionaire donors over working people’s interests in the intraparty battle between progressives and moderates.
But at the brunch, Warren said she came to “show respect” to Pritzker for his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Pritzker, she said, has been “showing some old-school loyalty to the people of Illinois, and showing that Democrats, or at least some Democrats, don’t back down.” She called Pritzker “a governor with a backbone, a fighter who is willing to throw a punch if it’s needed to get things done.”
To be sure, Democrats in Illinois face few electoral headwinds in a state deeply opposed to Trump, where the state GOP has fallen to near irrelevance under its fealty to the president, fielding candidates who have sought right-wing martyrdom over electability and who lack big-money donors.
But revelations first exposed by a Tribune investigation that Welch’s office’s knew Benton had harassed one of his district office staffers three years ago — that Welch nonetheless pumped $1.4 million into the Plainfield lawmaker’s reelection campaign the following year, and that he took action against Benton only this year, after two additional women were harassed — has raised fresh questions about his leadership and the lack of checks and balances in Illinois’ one-party government.
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On Tuesday evening, Welch received limited applause after speaking to attendees at an Illinois Democratic Women’s fundraiser at a downtown bar. He was introduced by Cook County Clerk Monica Gordon as “someone who stands up for women.”
“You know,” Welch said, “I believe that if we’re going to change culture, whether it’s in Washington, D.C., and that terrible guy in the White House, or in state capitols all over this country, including right here in Springfield, we have to elect women to office.”
But the former staffer whom Benton harassed said she had hopes of a career in government and politics but was forced to quit her post over fears for her mental health. Despite reporting allegations of Benton’s harassment in 2023 to Welch’s then-chief of staff, Benton was never disciplined over his abuse of her, and the speaker contended it was a “he said, she said” situation.
Welch has pledged institutional reforms in response to the Benton issue. Welch told WGN-TV on Aug. 6 that “you have to be transparent with people. I certainly think you have to be inclusive and work with people” as he announced the formation of a closed-door Democratic working group to examine House Workplace Culture and Accountability.
But so far three House Democrats have refused to sit on the panel — state Reps. Kelly Cassidy of Chicago, Gregg Johnson of East Moline and Tracy Katz Muhl of Northbrook.
Despite Welch’s pledge of inclusiveness, Cassidy said the working group rollout was “botched from the jump.”
“If we’re to truly reform the entire system … it can’t be the House Democratic Caucus dictating to everyone else how this is going to go. It does have to be a collaborative and transparent process,” Cassidy said on Friday.
“The problem is not just what the House’s policies are or the House Democratic Caucus’s policies are. It is with the entire culture and the entire system,” she said, citing the need to include House and Senate Democrats and Republicans.
But as currently constituted, she said, “The question before us is: Was talking to the (former Benton staffer) and the perpetrator and declaring (the situation) a ‘he said, she said,’ actually investigating the matter,” as Welch has described his actions in 2023.
“Why (was) it appropriate to continue to support (Benton)? Why was he not excommunicated from the caucus in that same election cycle as people that (Welch) financed primaries against,” she asked. “Why did Welch just do the most cursory of — I can’t even call it an investigation.”
Johnson, the East Moline Democrat who spurned membership on the working group, noted it was constituted by lawmakers who had publicly spoken out in support of Welch in the fallout over his handling of the Benton scandal. The group also includes members of Welch’s leadership team.
“I really just don’t feel comfortable serving on the (working group) with them because I feel like there’s a possibility it’s people coming in with preconceived notions,” Johnson said Friday. In the ensuing controversy, he said, “I felt like (the former Benton staffer) was kind of getting lost in all of this, and I just wasn’t comfortable with that.“
Katz Muhl has said she supports “consistent, centralized (human resources) procedures and trainings on all subjects — including but not limited to sexual harassment — for all representatives and for Springfield and district office staff.” But she said an “independent, expert-driven process” rather than a working group is best suited to address the issue.
At the morning county chairs brunch, more than 2,000 people attended to hear speeches from Pritzker, Warren and members of the Nov. 3 Democratic statewide slate, including Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat, and Christian Mitchell, who is seeking to replace her as Pritzker’s top lieutenant.
Also speaking were Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who is seeking reelection while also having announced his bid for Chicago mayor next year, along with outgoing state Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who is giving up the office to focus on her run for Chicago mayor.
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The event was also dedicated to honoring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who is retiring in January after serving more than four decades in Washington.
“It’s been a wonderful experience for me,” the 81-year-old Durbin said. “Politics is in my bloodstream, and as (the late Arizona U.S. Rep.) Morris Udall once said: If you have politics in your bloodstream, only embalming fluid will replace it.”