A disgraced southwest suburb ex-legislator “made the right decision” to step down last week following unspecified misconduct allegations, according to Gov. JB Pritzker — but it’s unlikely the public will ever see the scathing government watchdog report that prompted the resignation of state Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield.
“I think he made the right decision, there’s no doubt, and I’m always in favor of transparency,” Pritzker said at an unrelated press conference Monday. “I think that one of the reasons, though, that he may have chosen to resign is because… a report can’t be released about somebody that’s not in the Legislature anymore.
“So that may have been one of the reasons that he chose to resign as he did. But I can’t say for sure,” Pritzker said.
Benton sent notice Friday to Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, who had threatened to initiate expulsion proceedings from their chamber if Benton didn’t resign.
Welch issued that edict last week, “an hour” after receiving an investigative report from Legislative Inspector General Mike McCuskey on the allegations against Benton, according to the speaker, who had banished Benton from the House Democratic caucus since February when the accusations surfaced.
The specific accusations against Benton have not been made public, but sources have described them as sexual harassment allegations. Welch called them “outrageous, unethical, and unbecoming.”
In his resignation letter, the two-term representative Benton said “[t]his matter has placed tremendous strain on my family since it began in late February” and asked “that our privacy be honored.”
Benton, who is also withdrawing from his bid for reelection in November, hasn’t given up his $72,000-per-year elected post as Wheatland Township highway commissioner. Township officials didn’t return messages seeking comment.
Under state law, the inspector general’s report can only be released by the bipartisan Legislative Ethics Commission, an eight-member panel with equal representation from both parties and chambers of the Capitol.
And that’s only allowed for cases “resulting in discipline in the form of suspension of at least three days or termination of employment.” It’s unclear if Benton’s case met that criteria, or if the commission could still release it anyway, a prospect on which Pritzker and Welch cast doubt.
“I don’t have the authority to release the report, and I don’t know — because this is still relatively new to a lot of us — whether the Legislative Ethics Commission has the authority of release,” Welch said. “I do know that they are scheduled to meet in a couple of weeks, and they will be meeting with the legislative inspector general himself. But I’ve got to imagine that because [Benton] has resigned, they no longer have the authority to look into this further,” Welch said.
“But I’m going to let the Legislative Ethics Commission determine what their ability is going forward,” said Welch, who ascended to the speaker’s office in 2021 after Michael Madigan lost his decades-long grip on Springfield for mishandling sexual harassment complaints in his political organization.
“We have a process in place that I believe is a good process,” Welch said. “This process had people come to my office. They trusted us to listen to them. They trusted us to have procedures in place that would protect them, protect their confidentiality. And we had a process in place that guaranteed due process of the accused… I think the process worked. I think accountability was had.”