A state lawmaker from Bloomington who helped stage a coup of the Illinois House speaker is hopeful his removal, along with a new legislative inspector general, will lead to substantive changes in the way harassment and abuse allegations are handled in state government.
State Rep. Sharon Chung of Bloomington was one of 26 Illinois House lawmakers who called for Emanuel ‘Chris’ Welch to step down from his leadership role.
Chung said she was surprised by how quickly Welch announced he would not seek a new term as speaker, hours after the lawmakers issued the letter.
“We had been having many discussions for quite a while,” Chung said in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas, referring to the efforts by lawmakers to get Welch removed.
The lawmakers pushed Welch out of the leadership post largely due to his handling of harassment allegations that led to state Rep. Harry Benton’s resignation last summer.
Chung cited other reasons for not supporting Welch, including an effort she saw that discouraged efforts to pursue bipartisan legislation, by only bringing to the House floor any measure that already had 60 Democratic votes [the minimum majority to pass].
Chung, who last week was re-elected without opposition to a third two-year term, declined to name any potential favorites to replace Welch, adding that “a lot of names” are being floated in Springfield.
Chung said the incoming speaker will have to manage priorities of a Democratic majority that's grown to 84 members, 50 more than Republicans will have. Chung said she wants to see the new speaker listen to more moderate lawmakers who support bipartisan legislation.
"I want to hear from the new speaker if they do have a plan for how to sort of wrangle this beast that is the 84-member House caucus to also make sure they are really listening to members,” Chung said.
Harassment prevention
Illinois lawmakers are scheduled to undergo harassment prevention training when they return to Springfield for the fall veto session next week.
Chung said the training will be led by Illinois’ new [acting] Legislative Inspector General, David Risley, who replaced Michael McCuskey.
McCuskey, a former federal judge and Illinois State University Board of Trustees chair, resigned in September amid claims he was not handling abuse allegations properly.
Chung said the training should provide clarity on how lawmaker staff members can report allegations, noting that the staffer who said they were abused by Rep. Benton did not know where to report it.
"Even though they are employed by the state they are sort of seen as the rep, the member themself is the one that hired them, so it is kind of unclear,” Chung said. “I want to make sure we are doing everything above board.”
