* Last week…

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch is apologizing for his interactions with a former staff member who brought a sexual harassment complaint against ex-Rep. Harry Benton to his office.

Welch told Capitol News Illinois it wasn’t until he read a Chicago Tribune article last month that he realized his actions — including reacting to the former staffer’s Instagram photos with heart eyes and inviting her to a bar through an encrypted messaging app — made her feel uncomfortable.

“When I read that, I felt terrible,” Welch, a Hillside Democrat, said. “That certainly was not my intent, but I made her feel uncomfortable, and I have to own that. I regret that and I’m embarrassed by it, and I apologize for it. And I think that’s taking responsibility.”

Welch said he’s changed his social media behavior since the Chicago Tribune’s July 17 report, which focused heavily on the fact that the staffer initially complained about Benton’s actions toward her in 2023.

* Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago) was on Ben Joravsky’s show this week and said Welch was told he had a problem with his social media presence years ago before he was elected House Speaker…

He did know that, because this came up during his first race for speaker. His social media activity was, those photos, screenshots, were flying around the Bank of Springfield floor. And there was a whole conversation about it. And so to suggest that this is something new is just patently false. I have had conversations with him since then about people who pointed out his social media activity as concerning, since then, and, you know, it’s just, it’s patently false.

* Cassidy on Speaker Welch inviting Harry Benton’s former staffer via the encrypted Signal app to meet at the bar in Gibson’s…

You know, whenever I find myself in a group of younger people, happily I have some of those in my family, so I frequently am around younger people. I ask young women, and I just do it dispassionately: ‘All right, you reach out to a senior person in your desired field that you’ve had a tangential connection to and ask for career advice. He asks you to move your conversation to Signal and invites you to the bar at Gibson’s.’

And their face will tell you that, this is completely unambiguous in many cases, their face will tell you that it’s already happened to them. I had one young woman ask me, ‘Did she reply?’ And I said, No. Why? And she said, ‘Because I was expecting that the next message would be telling her what to wear.’ This is unambiguous to young people. This was not a professional invitation by any stretch of the imagination.

* On updating procedures and Speaker Welch’s “investigation” into the Benton matter…

We really need to do this more collaboratively and be mindful of the fact that there are people who work for others who are being harassed in our building, who don’t have anywhere to go. But, you know, this concept that we have to focus this working group’s efforts on House policies when the reality of this issue is not so much about, you know, did she know she could go to human resources, did she know who to talk to?

It really boils down to what the speaker called an investigation wasn’t. You can’t say, I conducted an investigation by talking to the victim and accepting the denial of the perpetrator without trying to get to the bottom of it at all.

And so at the end of the day, you don’t need policies to say ‘take victims seriously.’ Be sincere in your effort to get them help, because talking to [Benton] really only gave [Benton] the opportunity to retaliate against her again because he started sending her invitations to the meetings he was having with the speaker about this.

* And at the end, Ben makes note of something very important about this state…

Joravsky: Just think any kind of resistance, Kelly, think about like you sticking out your neck about what’s been happening with sexual harassment charges. Any kind of resistance in this state, you get ripped. I mean, if you stick your neck out on any issue, you’re going to get hammered.

Cassidy: I am so glad you brought that up, Ben, because what I’ve been saying to colleagues when they’re talking to me about this, and anybody that talks to me about like, Aren’t you afraid of what might happen because you’ve been so outspoken on this? And the reality of life is that you are never safer from retaliation than when you are standing in the middle of the street screaming the truth. And so I welcome others to practice that as well and and be unafraid. … Embrace that reality. Because it’s easier to retaliate against somebody who has shown themselves to be frightened.

Please pardon any transcription errors.