With the national political landscape tilting against Republicans ahead of next month’s midterm elections, the Illinois GOP is hoping recent scandals involving Democratic state lawmakers will breathe new life into the party’s efforts to gain more relevance in the General Assembly.
Republicans have seized on House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against former Democratic state Rep. Harry Benton of Plainfield, who resigned this summer. A Tribune investigation in July revealed Welch, a Hillside Democrat, knew of Benton’s reported misbehavior toward a former staffer three years ago but did not discipline him at the time.
Also in July, another House Democrat, six-term Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana, was indicted on federal charges alleging she orchestrated a scheme to enrich herself using taxpayer and campaign funds. Ammons has pleaded not guilty and is running unopposed for a seventh term.
With Democrats using President Donald Trump’s low approval ratings and the high gas prices triggered by his war in Iran to their advantage, Republicans are not only slapping back by labeling Democrats’ economic policies ineffective but also looking for ways to change the conversation.
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“Obviously there is a real gap of moral courage that’s going on from the leadership of the Democratic Party,” Bob Grogan, who was recently chosen as state Republican chair, told reporters in August during a GOP gathering at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. “The failure to protect victims, etc., is something that we’re going to talk to regular voters (about).”
While all 118 House seats and 39 of the 59 Illinois Senate seats are on the Nov. 3 ballot, there’s no sign of the legislature flipping red. Democrats enter the election with majorities of 78-40 in the House and 40-19 in the Senate, and they also control all statewide offices.
Democrats also hold a significant fundraising advantage. For instance, Democrats for the Illinois House, a campaign committee controlled by Welch, reported having more than $1.2 million on hand at the end of June, while the House Republican Organization, the GOP caucus’s main campaign fund, had only nearly $363,000, according to State Board of Elections records. More up-to-date figures are expected to be filed later this week.
Here is a look at some of the competitive legislative races being watched on Election Day.
Benton fallout
After Benton resigned in July and dropped his reelection bid, Democratic Party officials appointed Jessica Dixon Heitman to finish his term representing the 97th House District, which encompasses a swath of Chicago’s far southwest suburbs, and to take his spot on the ballot.
Heitman now faces Republican Gabby Shanahan, whom Benton defeated in the 2024 election by fewer than 2,400 votes out of more than 52,700 ballots cast.
A married mother of three from Plainfield, Heitman is a granddaughter of the late U.S. Sen. Alan Dixon and has held staff positions in the General Assembly, including as a deputy press secretary for former Illinois Senate President John Cullerton. Most recently, she has been president of communications firm Dixon/Heitman Collective.
She also worked briefly as a contract employee in Benton’s Plainfield office in early 2023, overlapping with the ex-staffer who accused him of sexual harassment. Working in Benton’s office “was not a great fit,” Heitman told the Tribune in a July interview, adding, “It’s a hard thing” to discuss.
Shanahan and other Republicans have criticized Heitman for not coming forward about the former Benton staffer’s allegations. In an interview last month, Shanahan said that when bad things happen to young women in politics and government, “we need good advocates to encourage these people to come forward.”
“If you see something, you should say something, so that this doesn’t happen again,” Shanahan said, noting that Welch’s campaign operation spent $1.4 million supporting Benton for a second term in 2024.
That was a year after the speaker’s office received the report of sexual harassment and took no disciplinary action. Welch has said Benton denied the allegations.
Heitman pushed back on Shanahan’s criticism, stressing the importance of maintaining trust and keeping the ex-staffer’s confidence by not getting involved in the matter.
“What happened to her never should have happened,” Heitman told the Tribune last week. “And it’s so disturbingly troubling to me to see her experience being turned into a political weapon because that is exactly what has happened here. … She deserves better than what she went through, being used to score campaign points.”
Despite the scrutiny surrounding Welch, Heitman has welcomed his financial support. Welch’s political operation, as of midday Monday, had contributed more than $392,000 to her campaign, records show.
Running in one of the most competitive legislative races this year, Heitman said she accepts support from “people in organizations that want to see Democrats succeed.”
“Campaign contributions don’t change my position on what happened or my belief that that system 100% failed that woman,” Heitman said. “I will make my decisions based on what I believe is right for my district and the people I represent, and it’s regardless of who contributes to my campaign.”
Heitman said she hadn’t decided whether she would support Welch for another two-year term as House speaker, saying she was focused first on getting elected.
If she wins, she said her top issues would include adequately funding public education while also supporting policies to ease the burden of property taxes, the primary source of school funding in Illinois. Increasing state support for education has to be done responsibly, she said, without “increasing more costs on families that are already struggling.”
Heitman said she’s interested in proposals that would raise taxes on the wealthiest Illinoisans — even if it means trying again to win voter approval for a state constitutional amendment — if that revenue were to be dedicated to both school funding and property tax relief.
She also supports policies to increase healthcare access and, in light of the Benton case, to strengthen state ethics and sexual harassment laws.
Shanahan, from Joliet and a married mother of three, works as a grassroots engagement director for the policy advocacy group Americans for Prosperity.
The House Republican Organization, as of midday Monday, had contributed more than $255,000 to Shanahan’s campaign this election cycle, records show. In March, she also received a $7,300 contribution from north suburban billionaire Richard Uihlein, a conservative megadonor and chair of the Uline packing supplies company.
If elected, Shanahan said, she’d oppose high taxes and “unfunded mandates” the state imposes on smaller jurisdictions. Shanahan also said she’s interested in proposals to ease the property tax burden, including a House GOP proposal for property tax relief grants to school districts.
“Regardless of (whether) you’re a Democrat or Republican, we’re hearing the biggest issue in the state is property taxes,” Shanahan said of her conversations with voters.
The state could offer temporary tax relief by suspending the sales tax on gasoline, which is separate from the 48.3 cent-per-gallon gasoline tax, as House Republicans have proposed, she said.
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“I think that’s something we can do to help our residents,” Shanahan said.
Rematch heats up
In a rematch of a 2024 House race decided by just 595 votes, incumbent Democratic Rep. Amy “Murri” Briel of Ottawa is defending her seat against Republican Liz Bishop of LaSalle. The J-shaped 76th House District stretches south from DeKalb and west along the Illinois River Valley.
This time around, Bishop’s campaign has turned up the heat on Briel by highlighting questions about the lawmaker’s treatment of staffers, including during the 2024 campaign.
Among those who’ve come forward is a woman named Laura Jackson, who spoke out in a roughly 40-minute video interview coordinated by Bishop’s campaign. Jackson accused Briel of making advances toward her and fostering a “chaotic and abusive environment within Briel’s campaign and government office,” among other allegations, Bishop’s campaign said in a statement announcing the video’s release.
Speaking to reporters at a town hall event in DeKalb on Sept. 10, Briel denied the allegations from Jackson and two other former campaign staffers who, without being publicly identified, have alleged they were mistreated.
When reporters pressed her on the allegations in Jackson’s video, Briel said she hadn’t watched it but was “denying what I have heard.”
Former Illinois Legislative Inspector General Michael McCuskey reviewed a complaint from Jackson but by law was unable to investigate because many of the events she alleged involved campaign activities that predated Briel being sworn in, placing that alleged conduct outside McCuskey’s jurisdiction.
Bishop said in a Tribune interview that she publicized Jackson’s allegations because she felt voters had a right to know.
“I would not have given her a platform if I hadn’t believed that she was (credible) because that doesn’t do anybody any good,” Bishop said.
Though she denied the allegations, after their disclosure, Briel withdrew from a House Democratic working group Welch created to explore ways to improve workplace safeguards in the General Assembly, part of the speaker’s response to the Benton case.
“I just don’t want to be a distraction or cause any unnecessary scrutiny on them because it’s going to be a really tough job,” Briel said. “Why would I put my colleagues in a vulnerable position when they’re doing really amazing work?”
During Briel’s one term, measures she’s worked on that have become law include expanding a requirement for adult-size changing tables for the disabled in public buildings, a ban on hospitals pursuing liens on patients’ homes during legal disputes over medical debt, and a training requirement for teachers and school employees on service animals.
If reelected, Briel said she would work on legislation to better protect healthcare workers from physical attacks or threats of violence. She also wants to fight for more resources for family farms, many of which, Briel said, are going bankrupt.
Despite the allegations, Welch and the Democratic Party of Illinois were still all in on Briel. Since August, Welch’s campaign operation has contributed more than $171,000 to Briel’s campaign, state records show, while the state party’s contributions have totaled more than $119,000.
Bishop, who serves as the LaSalle city clerk and has a professional background in finance, has bankrolled a large portion of her campaign in this election cycle, with nearly $592,000, state records show. The House Republican Organization has also stepped up with about $212,000 in contributions, and the state GOP has helped her campaign with about $94,000.
After losing to Briel two years ago, Bishop said she’s gotten a better handle on campaigning in DeKalb, the district’s largest city. A big part of that effort has been courting the campus community at Northern Illinois University, she said.
Like Shanahan, Bishop wants to zero in on making life more affordable for Illinoisans and evaluating unfunded mandates to determine “which ones are unnecessary” and “which ones are redundant.”
“We’re just pushing way too many costs down to counties, and then we’ve got these crazy property taxes,” Bishop said.
She also wants the General Assembly to reevaluate how the legislative inspector general is chosen, as well as the protections given to victims, whistleblowers and others coming forward with allegations of wrongdoing by lawmakers and staffers.
Senate showdown
In a hotly contested race in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, Democratic Rep. Nabeela Syed of Palatine is trying to move into the state Senate by challenging Republican incumbent Darby Hills of Barrington.
The race could be a good test to see how much appeal Republicans still have in suburban Cook County and the collar counties, as the party’s power has dwindled in the suburbs over the past decade as Democrats swept into former GOP strongholds.
Syed, now in her second term in the House, ended June with close to $280,500 in her campaign coffers, records show. But since then, she’s received more than $2.6 million in large-dollar contributions, much of it from Democratic Senate President Don Harmon’s campaign operation and the state Democratic Party.
Hills was appointed to her seat last year by suburban GOP officials to finish out the term of former Senate Republican leader Dan McConchie of Hawthorn Woods.
At the end of June, Hills had more than $641,000 in her campaign fund. She’s since raised more than $598,000 in large contributions, with much of the money coming from the state GOP and the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm.
Also in the northwest suburbs, incumbent Republican Rep. Martin McLaughlin of Barrington Hills faces Democrat Maria Peterson of North Barrington in a rematch of a 2024 race that McLaughlin won by just 47 votes. And Republican Danielle Penman of St. Charles is going against Democrat Michele Clark of Algonquin for a seat occupied by outgoing GOP Sen. Donald DeWitte of St. Charles.
In the western suburbs, Democrat Erica Bray-Parker, a member of the Wheaton City Council, is competing against Republican Robert Vrankovich, an entrepreneur from Carol Stream. They’re running for a seat currently occupied by Republican Rep. Amy Grant of Wheaton, who isn’t running for reelection.
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