[MUSIC] >> Welcome to capitol view on.

See you.

I'm Jeff Williams sitting in this week as we take a look at what's making news around the state in Illinois politics.

You know more information is coming to light surrounding former 97th district State Representative Harry Benton, who resigned from the Illinois House earlier this month following a legislative inspector general's report.

We'll take a closer look at that story and some more things this week on Capitol View.

And to help lead our discussion this week, Mawa Iqbal our state reporter for WBEZ and for our Illinois public radio stations, and Dan Petrella, political writer for the Chicago Tribune.

Welcome back to both of you.

Good to see you both.

>> Thank you.

>> Glad to be here.

>> As we first talked about about former State Representative Harry Benton's resignation from the General Assembly last week on the show, amidst a legislative inspector general's report that, to my knowledge, still has not yet or has yet to be released to the public.

Since that time, the Chicago Tribune did an investigative piece.

More information has come out regarding some alleged sexual harassment on Benton's part, as well as a timeline for when Speaker Welch may have first learned about the allegations.

Also this week, the speaker has apparently been meeting with the Democratic members to provide context or some would say, to do damage control within within his party.

It's an unfortunate and definitely difficult situation, to say the least.

Dan, I know you and your colleagues have have done some reporting on on, on this story.

Kind of bring us bring us up to speed.

>> Yes.

My colleagues, Jeremy Gorner, who's our Springfield bureau chief, and Rick Pearson, who's our chief political reporter, have been investigating this for for a few months now, since, um, Benton was first, uh, disinvited from House Democratic caucus meetings and stripped of his, his committee postings.

Um, as you said, the the latest this week is that the speaker is kind of in damage control mode.

He's been having closed door meetings with members of the House Democratic Caucus, um, trying to, uh, you know, explain the situation.

Um, their characterization of the situation is that this, uh, young woman who is a staffer, uh, a district staffer for former Representative Benton, uh, came to the speaker's office and expressed some concerns.

But from the speaker's point of view, according to some sources who spoke to my colleagues, uh, she didn't want anything done until she left.

Uh, left her job.

And, uh, she though disputes that characterization and said she never asked the speaker's office, uh, you know, not to take any action.

The only thing that she had asked is for them not to go to the legislative inspector general.

But, you know, what's really sort of unsettling about the situation is there's echoes of, uh, some of what we saw nine years ago or so under former House Speaker Madigan when there were, um, sexual harassment allegations against members of his his political operation and his, his government staff as well.

And so, you know, that was part of what was sort of the beginning of the end for for the former speaker.

And so, um, you know, some folks within the caucus are not happy with the way that this has been handled so far.

And, um, it's, it's, you know, another instance of, of House Democrats in particular having, um, you know, allegations or, you know, misbehavior that's in other cases been been proven.

And so, um, it's a, it's a, a perilous political time for, for the House Democrats.

And also, obviously, you know, a larger concern about how these, these sexual harassment allegations are being handled, you know, almost ten years now after the MeToo movement really, you know, hit in Springfield and also all across across the globe.

So the next step here is that, uh, on Thursday, the Legislative Ethics Commission, which is the only, uh, group of folks who has power to release that report publicly, will meet, uh, uncertain whether they will, will vote on whether to release that report.

uh, here this week, but, uh, it takes a majority vote of an eight member commission.

That's half Republicans and half Democrats.

And we know in the past, from testimony from former legislative inspector general that this panel under, you know, previous iterations, not the same members, but has deadlocked on releasing reports along partisan lines.

So there's going to be a, you know, a lot of attention on whether the legislative ethics commissions decide decides to make this report public.

>> Mhm.

Yeah.

>> Yeah.

Oh, sorry.

I was just going to add to that.

Um, you know, like what Dan was saying with the echoes of what happened under former speaker Mike Madigan, there's there's quite a few lawmakers who are part of the women's caucus in the House who were there at the time and have been kind of speaking out about how, you know, we don't want a repeat of this.

And, you know, I was forwarded a newsletter from State Representative Kelly Cassidy, who is like one of those lawmakers.

And she she had said that, you know, that this is something that that we're investigating, but we're also wanting to make sure that it just doesn't happen again.

And she also it's important to note that she sits on the Lek, which is the Legislative Ethics Commission that, as Dan mentioned, is meeting later this week to discuss whether they should bring this report to the public or not.

But then you also have, like Representative Anastasia Murray, who also on her Facebook had posted something about, you know, wanting to hear from researchers, you know, experts in the field of sexual harassment and workplace harassment just to like figure out like, okay, what are ways that like, we can talk about moving forward and creating a culture that's not fostering more of these allegations after what we saw under Madigan.

So it seems like that this will be something we'll probably be talking about for a while.

Um, it's also it's important to note that, uh, the person who is replacing Harry Benton to run or to serve out his term, but then also to run again on November 3rd is Jessica Dickson Heitman, and she actually briefly served as his media outreach and community outreach coordinator.

So like, like a, she's a PR professional.

Um, and she in her like swearing in statement had said that, you know, she's going to try to make this district represent, um, like strong ethics and, and, and values of, of just, you know, like fostering like a safe, safe environment for, for everyone.

So it's, it's, it seems like, like even in this race, like after Benton has left, there still seems to be this sort of like cloud, right?

That that's kind of, I think it's going to be a pretty big talking point in November.

Mhm.

>> And my understanding is that she has a pretty rich, um, lineage in terms of, of politics.

>> She served a few brief stints as communications or working as communications in the Illinois House and Senate as well.

And currently she is, she has her own PR firm.

So, so she's pretty politically involved.

Um, you know, the Illinois Republican Party, though, has come out and criticized her for not speaking out when they they say that she allegedly knew about the alleged harassment and didn't speak out when she was working for Benton back in 2023.

I believe.

Um, but I also wanted to mention that there is a Republican challenger, Gabby Shannahan, who's also a politician.

She's also had, um, a lot of experience in local politics and running for different elected offices.

And she, um, her main campaigning point this time has been, you know, that Harry Benton has all these allegations.

And, you know, if you elect me, like I will make sure that we create an environment that's not fostering that kind of alleged misconduct and stuff like that.

So it's definitely like, like a, I think something that we're going to be hearing more of in November.

>> Yeah.

At this point, just in all transparency and clarity as of today, as far as we know, there there have been no charges filed against Benton, either either criminal or civil.

Correct.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

That's correct.

>> All right.

>> Um, also last week we talked about the federal grand jury indictment of State Representative Carol Ammons and Urbana Democrat, as well as her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, on federal corruption charges.

Since then, they have both since pleaded not guilty.

Representative Ammons has has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

I think there is.

Republicans in the House have initiated the convening of a special investigative committee.

Are there any any new develops any additional developments in in this story?

>> The most recent development is that that Special Investigating Committee is set to meet in early August.

Um, at a news conference outside her her first court appearance last week, Representative Ammons, uh, uh, her attorney called for a delay in that process, which will be interesting to see how they handle that.

Um, you know, uh, current speaker Chris Welch was actually the chair of a special investigating committee that looked into former Speaker Madigan when the allegations about bribery by, by ComEd first came to light back in 2020, and they kind of put the brakes on that process after a couple hearings.

Um, you know, they accused the Republicans who had also called for that committee of, uh, you know, engaging in political theater and didn't want to interrupt the federal investigation process.

It'll be interesting to see if they take a similar approach here with Representative Ammons, or whether they allow this, uh, this process to, to proceed.

>> So as of right now, she's still fully plugged into caucus activities.

>> And actually, no, she's been suspended from she's been suspended.

Yeah.

From coming to, uh, internal caucus meetings.

And she also has been removed from her committee, uh, postings, including a serving as a chair of, of one committee, which comes with an extra, um, stipend of, I can't remember the figure off the top of my head somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 or so a year that you get for extra for being a committee chair.

So, um, there's been some, some temporary punishment, at least in that regard.

Speaker Ruth said that that will continue until her legal process has played out.

>> One thing I'll add to is that the Illinois AfL-CIO, the largest like state, or are they the state union basically came out with their list of endorsements for the general elections in November, and they did have Carol Ammons as as an endorsed member.

And I talked with their their flack or their spokesperson, and they said that basically, you know, she's had a long track record of, of being pro-labor.

And, you know, the this, this case hasn't fully resolved yet.

She hasn't actually been convicted of anything.

So we want to throw our support behind her for, for now, in the event that her indictment does get thrown out as well.

>> One other thing of note there is that the House Republican political operation has put out an ad targeting her.

But as of right now, there's no Republican candidate on the ballot in that district.

So Representative Ammons remains on the ballot, as does does her husband, at least as of my last check, who's up for reelection as well?

Um, so they can criticize, but they have, at least at this point, no.

Excuse me, no candidate to to oppose her in November.

>> Yeah.

>> And obviously the election cycle going on there, I believe the trial is tentatively scheduled to begin on September 17th, but there likely may be a delay there with everything else that's that's going on.

Um, I want to shift focus just a little bit in the latest chapter of the immigration enforcement effort that took place in Chicago.

The city is asking residents to, to document what they may have witnessed during during Operation Midway Blitz.

I know, Molly, you reported at least in some part on on this city's efforts.

What's the story there with this?

>> Yeah.

This is basically.

>> Coming after the Illinois Accountability Commission, which was a state commission formed by Governor Pritzker, and it was mostly justices or former justices that were chairing it or part of it.

And and there, you know, it was like months of public hearings where they had many different experts, you know, in child psychology.

They had policing experts, they had constitutional law experts come and testify about what people were witnessing with the Operation Midway blitz.

They also were encouraging residents to submit evidence.

Um, you know, video and photos and oral and written testimony about what they've witnessed or what they've personally experienced while they were just out and about either protesting or even just, uh, you know, walking outside and encountering, uh, federal immigration agents.

And so this is kind of a continuation of that.

You know, Mayor Johnson signed this executive order, I believe a couple weeks ago that basically created like an infrastructure for the City of Chicago Police Department to, you know, uh, collect testimony, you know, investigate and then refer it to, um, like federal prosecutors or criminal prosecutors, I should say, to to try these federal officers in a criminal court.

And, you know, it's something that has been kind of complicated, I would say, to for for a lot of like local prosecutors to figure out there's obviously this federalism question, you know, can can local prosecutors even charge federal agents, or will the cases just get kicked up to federal court?

You know, there's also questions of like, um, if you do try to charge an officer, will the federal government then come in as a defendant?

Right.

And then you have the whole case against the federal government.

So it's really difficult, but it definitely hasn't stopped some local prosecutors from trying to figure out what to do.

Um, I will say that, you know, the Illinois Accountability Commission chair, um, he's a former justice Reuben Castillo had sort of called out, um, her name is I always mess up her name, but it's Cook County State's attorney, Eileen O'Neill Burke.

Right.

I think that's how you say Dan.

Um, so so he had called her out, basically just just saying that she hasn't been trying hard enough, so to speak, to, to try to prosecute these, these agents.

And of course, her office came up with a statement saying that there's a whole process.

You know, it's it's very difficult.

You have to make sure that that we have the jurisdiction basically to, to move forward.

So I think this is just another way for, you know, like the city to kind of continue what they have been trying to do for a while, especially with the accountability Commission.

Um, so, so we'll see.

I will say to that, that there is a collar county, I believe it's Kane County.

The Kane County State's attorney has also tried levying some criminal charges against some Ice agents for kind of similar things, right?

Like it's and there, there was an incident where, um, these residents complained about Ice agents body slamming them to the ground and using really aggressive physical tactics.

Um, and I'm not sure what has happened with those charges if they've gone anywhere.

But yeah, I guess this is something we'll just have to wait and see how they how it actually works through the court system.

>> Yeah, it's been interesting though.

I think one of the few, or maybe the only case we've seen really progress at all here in Cook County is, uh, an incident that happened at a gas station in suburban Brookfield where an immigration attorney who had been very involved in sort of the protests and stuff at the Broadview Detention facility, which is not too far away from where this incident happened, was filming an off duty agent at a at a gas station.

And they got into a little bit of a confrontation.

There was a misdemeanor charge, uh, filed there.

Um, but really, as I said, it's been there's been this big legal question, I think, not just here in Illinois, but across the country about what, what our state courts have to, uh, to really, um, you know, watch the watchmen, so to speak, or police these immigration agents and their activities when they're operating in cities across the country.

>> Yeah.

All right.

>> Well, looking at the calendar, the November election is about 15 weeks away.

That's about 104 days or so.

I guess if you're if you're counting, campaign season is definitely gearing up.

Last week marked the latest campaign finance reporting period.

And Dan, I know you did some a little bit of number number crunching there on the subject.

Um, who's raising money in Illinois and who's not?

>> Well, the pretty simple answer there is, uh, by and large, Democrats are raising money and Republicans are not.

Um, you know, Darren Bailey did raise the Republican nominee for governor, raised about $1.3 million, but also spent close to $1.3 million in the quarter.

And a lot of what he was spending his money on was fundraising outreach.

So it's really sort of a a treading water kind of situation.

Um, and that speaks to the situation that we see up and down the ballot.

You know, you have a billionaire, uh, in the governor's office who's a Democrat and who is not shy about using his money to help fellow Democrats get elected.

Um, you know, he's got to think a little over $3 million sitting in his campaign bank account at the end of June.

But he can write a check for 10 or 15 or 25 or $50 million.

Uh, whenever, whenever he wants to.

Um, you know, we see that really down the ballot.

Um, you know, the, the US Senate race between Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton and, uh, former Illinois GOP chair Don Tracy is a little more competitive.

But, um, you know, he's also a very wealthy man, not a billionaire, but a somebody who has the means to fund his own campaign.

But, um, you know, he puts him in, in the primary, but really hasn't, um, you know, made another large, uh, large loan or contribution there.

Um, and obviously the lieutenant governor won the, uh, the very competitive Democratic primary back in March with $10 million of support through a super PAC for from Governor Pritzker.

So if things are looking tight there, the, you know, the cavalry can always be called to the rescue, I'm sure.

Um, and, you know, one of the most, I think stark contrasts that we see is in the Secretary of state's race, where, uh, sort of one of the worst kept secrets in Illinois politics right now is that Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is likely gearing up to turn around and run for Chicago mayor in the in the spring.

Um, first round of voting there.

And he's sitting on a, I think, about $21 million, uh, almost $22 million in his account at the beginning of July.

And his Republican opponent, Diane Harris, had $1,800 remaining in her, uh, her campaign account.

And so, um, the story is really, you know, similar, um, you know, I'm sure there are some legislative races where, you know, it's not competitive for the Democrats, where maybe Republicans are, are a little better funded, but it really speaks to the state of the, the Illinois Republican Party today since the exit of former Governor Bruce Rauner and then some of the other, um, you know, mega donors who had backed him, such as, uh, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin and Richard Uihlein of the Uihlein, uh, Shipping and Packaging Supplies company, who have really, uh, you know, figured that their money is better spent elsewhere supporting Republicans rather than here in Illinois where it's been, um, you know, over a decade now since a Republican was elected statewide.

>> Mhm.

Sure.

>> Yeah.

And I saw a story.

Speaking of elections, I saw a story this week, I believe it was this week in Maine by way of Illinois.

Illinois's former public health director apparently suspended his campaign for a bid for U.S.

Senate in Maine.

What was the story there?

>> Yeah, it's been kind of a.

>> Crazy race to watch.

I mean, it's certainly a pivotal race, right?

Because it could determine the makeup of Congress and which party can, like, gain control of Congress.

Right.

So, so right now in Maine, there's an incumbent, Susan Collins, who's a Republican.

And then, you know, of course, the Democratic Party is trying to put up these, these, uh, Democrats to, to go against her in November.

And they had, um, this person named Graham Platner who had to basically step down recently because of sexual assault allegations.

And so I think in the midst of that, you know, around around that time, I believe, uh, this this, uh, his name is Doctor Nirav Shah.

And he used to be the former Illinois public health director.

And what was interesting about him is, is that, you know, he was presiding over the state Department of Public Health at the same time that there was a series of really bad and fatal outbreaks of Legionnaires disease in a state run veterans home in Quincy.

And that was something that that my colleagues, uh, Dave McKinney and Tony Arnold had reported on.

And they, they did a lot of investigating and found that, you know, those outbreaks were linked to 14 deaths and then dozens of staff members and residents getting sick.

And it became a huge, huge, you know, talking point during Governor Pritzker's run for governor for the first time against Bruce Rauner.

It resulted in some new state laws.

Um, but but it was definitely a very, very high profile, um, and terrible thing to, to have happened.

And it was during his tenure.

And so when he announced when he moved to Maine and then announced recently that he was going to run for this Democratic nominee amidst, you know, Graham Platner resigning all these, you know, sexual assault allegations.

Um, Tammy Duckworth actually was very quick to be like, oh, don't do that.

You know, we, we, uh, like, this is not, uh, he's not the right person to be representing Maine.

Like he's, he's someone who will put his public image over the lives of veterans.

And of course, she herself is a combat veteran, um, very outspoken on veteran issues.

So, you know, he, um, recently announced that he was stepping down and the statement that he gave to the public at least didn't really talk about any of the ID stuff.

Although it is interesting to note that when he was asked about it, he did kind of kind of say that, you know, I, I could have done better like that.

That's something that I definitely dropped the ball on when I was Idph director back in, in 2019.

Um, but, but this, this time around, he, you know, his statement was basically that we need to be a unified front, um, as a Democratic party to fight Susan Collins and the sort of the political resources and the backing that she has.

And so he's essentially stepped down to, to support this other person named Troy Jackson, who's a former Maine legislator.

But it was kind of interesting that the his run pretty much lasted like, I think under two weeks.

So.

>> All right.

Well, we've got I've got about four minutes left or so, um, to kind of end on a, on a, on a cheery note.

Uh, Marla, I understand women's professional baseball is coming to Springfield.

>> Yeah, it's just baseball.

Um, so, so, um.

>> It's the women's pro Baseball League's debut season and they're coming to Springfield, Illinois, which is amazing because you have these teams from New York and LA and Boston, and they're all just kind of descending upon Springfield.

And, and I've been seeing a lot of social chatter of people, you know, talking about where to stay, people.

It might be people's first time in central Illinois or even Illinois in general.

So it's been very cool.

Um, just to see all this like excitement and buzz around something that could be a potential economic boon for, for the city.

Um, you know, for those who aren't familiar with Springfield, like the downtown area has underwent or seen a lot of like tragedy recently.

There was like a, a huge fire that took out a couple businesses.

And I think just post Covid, there hasn't been as much foot traffic.

And so a lot of businesses have been closing down, including a really, really iconic, um, hotel right in the center.

So I think, I think, you know, it's definitely an opportunity for the city leaders to try to capitolize on all these people coming to the stadium.

Um, but, but it should be fun.

It's going to be around the time of the state fair.

So, so the kickoff game is August 1st and it's going through September 9th and the the championships, the.

All the like.

The final games will also be held in Springfield, so it'll be a good scene.

>> I'm hoping I'll have to break out my baseball tie of the week that that that goes out.

We got a couple of minutes left.

Um, what are each of you going to be keeping an eye on this week in the weeks ahead?

Dan, start with you.

>> Well, I'm going on vacation next week to recharge before before the election season starts.

So hopefully not keeping much of an eye on the news.

But, um, you know, when I'm back in early August, like Mao said, the state fair will be coming up, which is sort of the unofficial kickoff of the election season.

We'll have the big political days there for, um, for the Democrats and the Republicans each get their own day at the fair.

Um, we've got, uh, the, the anniversary of the, really the launch of Operation Midway Blitz here in Chicago coming up.

So, um, you know, looking at how immigration enforcement has, has, uh, gone since that started really in earnest a year ago.

Um, so lots going on despite the fact that it's supposed to be, uh, be a slow summertime.

And obviously, um, one of the stories to watch going into the election this fall, I think, is just be the turmoil that we've seen, um, among the House Democrats in Springfield and whether they can sort of stabilize things, you know, um, there have been other other members who have had internal discipline stuff happen to not for anything as serious as, um, the accusations against Representative Ammons or, uh, representative former Representative Benton.

But, um, you know, watching Speaker Welch and how he navigates this, uh, this rocky territory that he's in right now.

>> All right.

Marla.

>> Um, yeah, this is a continuation of the Sonya Massie, um, case.

And so the Sean Grayson, who was the former officer who was convicted of murdering her second degree murder, he actually has stage four colon cancer.

And so he's currently serving out his prison sentence.

And he has appealed to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board for an early medical release.

And so that hearing is July 31st.

Um, we'll see what happens.

I did get data from the state that suggests that a lot of those releases do get denied.

Um, there'll be a protest outside the building as well.

So we'll see.

>> All right.

Terrific.

>> Well, Mawa I'll let you have the last word is we're out of time for this week's edition of capitol View WBEZ.

Dan Petrella, Chicago Tribune.

Thank you both for joining us.

>> Thank you.

>> And thank you for tuning in for this edition of capitol View.

I'm Jeff Williams.

Have a good week.

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