By Illinois Radio Network/ Cole Lauterbach
SPRINGFIELD – A panel of women politicians tasked with making suggestions to fix the culture of inappropriate behavior has released its first report.
The Illinois Anti-Harassment, Equality and Access Panel, a group led by state Rep. Carol Ammons, D-Urbana, state Sen. Melinda Bush, D-Grayslake, and Comptroller Susana Mendoza, all of whom are Democrats, released the report Wednesday. It lists women telling stories of being sexually harassed as they worked in Illinois’ political campaigns.
“On campaigns, you have certain leaders, lobbyists, elected officials, candidates, and donors that can achieve near-celebrity status, and the people that work for them are often at the opposite end of the spectrum – volunteers, independent contractors, with relatively no power, who are vulnerable based on the disproportional power imbalance,” it said.
The report describes an environment where women can’t report incidents without fear of retaliation.
“I want a career,” one commenter said during the panel’s Chicago stop. “I want to be invited into the room where things get decided, and you don’t get there by being a bad sport.”
The panel suggested reforms in a number of areas, including clearer policies, further training, a clear path to reporting incidents without fear of retaliation, an independent investigator, rules about alcohol consumption as well as other suggestions that would see more minorities and women in politics.
In reaction to the study, Democratic Party Executive Director Christian Mitchell said Wednesday that many of the suggestions made have already been implemented, but he said he would look at what else they could do to fix the problem.
“Anything that we can do to implement further policies that are going to make sure that we have a safe space for women, that we’re not losing candidates and staff who are women because of this culture of harassment, I think is something that we’re going to work on moving forward,” he said.
Mitchell said a suggestion that parties do away with non-disclosure agreements gave him pause.
“Every organization has a lot of things that they do with data, with emails, et cetera and I wouldn’t want to be swept up in this,” he said. “At the same time, no one wants to see a situation where contractual obligations are used to quell claims of harassment.”
The panel was formed after revelations that some of House Speaker Michael Madigan’s closest allies in his role as chairman of the state’s Democratic Party were harassing women.
The panel sent copies of the report to all statewide party leaders.
