More Work is Needed on Sexual Harassment Policies in Illinois

The State Officials and Employees Ethics Act, which requires ethical conduct from legislators, did not include any mention of “harassment” until policy action was taken last week. The Illinois Human Rights Act, which covers sexual harassment issues for the majority of state employees, does not apply to legislators. Without policy changes to the Ethics Act last week, the Legislative Inspector General might not have been able to take significant recourse on sexual harassment claims, even after the position was filled.

The General Assembly passed legislation on November 7 to address some of these gaps. The bill, SB 402, amends the State Officials and Employee Ethics Act to explicitly include sexual harassment as an ethics violation for officials and staffers in the General Assembly. It also requires local units of government to have personnel policies specifically banning sexual harassment of employees.

Reform Attempts Create Patchwork Solutions
However, recent reform efforts do not address some important gaps in who and what are covered by the law. For example, SB 402 does not address loopholes in local ordinances that exempt elected officials from anti-discrimination laws. This loophole has presented itself in both state and city laws in the past.

The Chicago City Council voted on November 8 to close the city’s loophole in their sexual harassment ordinance. Prior to the change, the mayor, aldermen, and the city treasurer were exempted from provisions banning sexual harassment in city government. Now, those officials join the rest of city workers, who can be fined up to $5,000 by the city’s ethics commission if they are found to have violated the prohibition on harassment.

While these changes are important, they represent a patchwork approach to addressing potential discrimination by elected officials at the state and local level. Joe Ferguson, Inspector General for the City of Chicago, argues that recent efforts to eliminate sexual harassment should also bring attention to a larger issue: elected officials are frequently exempted from human rights laws, including anti-discrimination policies. From his perspective, this moment of public consciousness should be used to consider subjecting elected officials, including legislators, to the same anti-discrimination laws that govern all other government employees.

Additional Efforts to Reform ILGA Ethics
The General Assembly’s first major step on this topic was to name Julie Porter as interim Legislative Inspector General. Her interim appointment runs until the end of former IG Tom Homer’s original term in June 2018. However, she could choose leave before then, as her predecessor J William Roberts did in December 2015.

Another bill, HB 0137, also removes the one-year statute of limitations on opening investigations of alleged wrongdoing; however, the bill leaves in place the 18 month deadline for the Commission to hold hearings on misconduct. This deadline could prevent Julie Porter from recommending hearings on many of the 27 complaints she will be investigating, even if she finds sufficient evidence of an ethics violation.

The House and Senate also each passed resolutions to create Task Forces on Sexual Discrimination and Harassment Awareness and Prevention. The Senate Task Force received its first appointees this week, with Senate President John Cullerton appointing 10 members and Republican Leader Bill Brady naming an additional 5. Cullerton’s appointments include 7 members of his caucus, along with three women with experience working in the executive and legislative branches.

The Office of the Executive Inspector General (OEIG) provides a good example of balancing reporting with confidentiality, releasing annual reports summarizing the office’s work, along with summary reports for investigations where allegations of wrong-doing were well-founded. The annual reports include data on the number of complaints received, investigations opened and completed, and how cases pursued by OEIG were resolved. To address privacy concerns, the summary reports on specific OEIG cases redact sensitive information, including the content of any unfounded complaints made against an individual.

Office of Legislative IG Needs Independence from ILGA
Another major area of concern is the Legislative Inspector General’s reliance on the Ethics Commission to act on investigations. According to the Ethics Commission’s rules posted on their website, the Inspector General must gain permission from the Legislative Ethics Commission before opening an investigation on any complaint it receives.

The same rules describe similar limitations in other stages of the investigatory process. For example, they say the Inspector General cannot issue subpoenas without prior approval from the Commission. In fact, most stages of an investigation require Commission approval according to LEC rules, slowing the process and putting it at risk for potential interference by Commission members. While unlikely, commissioners may be tempted to restrict investigations of their colleagues in the General Assembly, since the commissioners are exclusively legislators.

The fact that commissioners are all legislators highlights a more general point – a great deal of power over the selection of Inspectors General and investigatory discretion is given to legislative leaders and their appointed commissioners. 

Ricardo Meza, former Illinois Executive Inspector General, observed this process is “clearly different” from the process Executive Inspectors General conduct in their investigations. They enjoy independence from the Executive Ethics Commission and are allowed to conduct investigations freely.

• Requiring all elected officials, even at the municipal and county level, to be covered by local sexual harassment and ethics policies
• Increasing the transparency around Legislative Inspector General (LIG) investigations
• Allowing the LIG to conduct investigations independently, without the approval of the Legislative Ethics Commission
• Removal of the 18 month statute of limitations on ethics violations investigated by the LIG
• Making the Legislative Ethics Commission independent from the General Assembly

Despite the political struggle in getting comprehensive reforms passed, Senator Karen McConnaughay, a member of the Legislative Ethics Commission, senses a “growing consensus” among legislators that serious reforms are needed. “Public pressure is one of the key aspects to getting [these reforms],” she observed.

ICPR remains committed to reforming the ethics reporting system in Springfield by working with legislators and by exerting public pressure to continue the conversation about necessary reforms.