State Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago) on Wednesday made his case to replace his ally Emanuel “Chris” Welch as Illinois House speaker, arguing that it doesn’t have to take a woman to clean up Springfield’s entrenched culture of sexual harassment.
Buckner is a trusted Welch lieutenant who has served the now-outgoing speaker as assistant majority leader and speaker pro tempore.
He was part of the working group Welch created last summer in response to explosive revelations that Welch was aware of sexual harassment allegations against disgraced ex-State Rep. Harry Benton (D-Plainfield) almost three years before additional complaints prompted Benton’s resignation.
Buckner has also served as the speaker’s point man on high-profile House issues ranging from the Bears stadium saga to the state budget — and the $1.5 million mass transit bailout that replaced the Regional Transit Authority with the newly created Northern Illinois Transit Authority.
Buckner is now making a strong play for the job of House speaker, after 26 House Democrats publicly demanded Welch’s ouster from the post. Welch decided to not seek another term as speaker.
“I’ve served in multiple leadership roles and I’ve worked on some of the most complex issues that have faced this state — from transit to budget to stadiums,” Buckner told the Sun-Times. “I’ve spent much of my own career building consensus among people who don’t necessarily agree with each other out of the gate.”
Welch’s exit was a repeat of past history.
Mishandling of sexual harassment allegations also marked the beginning of the end for Welch’s predecessor and mentor — now-convicted Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The back-to-back sexual harassment scandals in the speaker’s office could pave the way for a woman to become Illinois first female House speaker. Five women currently serving in the House have been among those mentioned as possible successors.
Buckner said the election of a woman would be “historically significant” and “not symbolic at all” because there are so many “accomplished women in our caucus who have worked on huge pieces of legislation.”
But he argued that the next speaker doesn’t necessarily need to be a woman to finally rid the chamber of the longstanding bias against women. The Benton scandal raised questions about Welch’s own behavior — his social media interactions with a complainant in the case left the young woman uncomfortable, for which he later apologized.
“It’s not gonna be the person with the gavel that’s fixing the culture. It’s the person with the gavel that’s giving the representatives the ability to fix their own house, to fix their culture, give them the resources and tools they need. Not creating a system where there’s gonna be retaliation if you say something they don’t like,” Buckner said.
“I don’t think it’s as binary as just saying it has to be a person in this space who is of a certain demographic… If we keep focusing on personalities, well be back in the same position in six years.”
If elected speaker, Buckner said he would work to implement a strict code of conduct that makes it “very clear what we will and what we won’t accept.” He would also change Welch’s much-criticized internal mandate that legislation garner support from 60 House Democrats to qualify for being called for a vote on the House floor.
“The 60-vote rule was created in order to foster and engender some unity withing our caucus. In some instances, it actually had the opposite effect,” Buckner said. “I don’t feel like the way forward is to continue… the 60-vote rule… But that would require stronger processes through the committee process to make certain that bills that may be detrimental to the state and to our caucus unity go through a more rigorous conversation.”
A former football standout at the University of Illinois, Buckner was not about to give his competitors for the speaker’s gavel any bulletin board material to be used against him.
Buckner said he does not believe the leadership vacuum created by Welch’s impending exit will make it difficult for lawmakers to finally resolve the Bears’ stadium saga.
Months of intense negotiations with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Gov. JB Pritzker and Bears ownership have centered on a stadium authority model that gives Chicago lawmakers political cover to support, because it cracks the door open to a salad bar of Chicago sites that the Bears appear to have considered and dismissed.
“The Bears only own one piece of land in the United States of America — and that is the former Arlington Park” racecourse site, Buckner said. “Business acumen would tell you if you spend a couple hundred million dollars on a piece of land, you wan to try and find a way to make it work.”