House Democrats drop PR firm that helped Madigan on #MeToo allegations while also working with accuser
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Illinois House Democrats say they will no longer work with a Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm that helped guide then-Speaker Michael Madigan on sexual harassment issues at the same time it was orchestrating support for a campaign worker who said she had been harassed by one of Madigan’s lieutenants.
House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, who succeeded Madigan in 2021, made the decision to drop the firm, SKDK, following reports that the company and one of its founders, Anita Dunn, worked with Madigan in 2018 and 2019 and received more than $200,000 from his personal campaign fund.
Madigan employed Dunn, who currently advises President Joe Biden and once worked in the Obama administration, while facing a job-threatening #MeToo reckoning because of allegations against several of his allies.
Their relationship began the same year that former House Democratic campaign worker Alaina Hampton went public with sexual harassment allegations against a top Madigan aide, Kevin Quinn, brother of 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn.
Hampton had charged in a federal lawsuit that she had been blackballed from working on Madigan’s operations for going public with her harassment claim. She later settled with Madigan-related campaign funds.
While working with Madigan, SKDK had hired a private contractor to help provide Hampton and other survivors with public relations support in a deal paid for by Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a women’s advocacy group. SKDK told the Tribune in August that this work was “wholly separate from any work helping Speaker Madigan address systemic cultural problems within his office.”
Dunn and SKDK’s work with Madigan emerged in August during the federal trial of Tim Mapes, Madigan’s longtime chief of staff, who was subsequently convicted of lying to a grand jury investigating Madigan, who now faces racketeering charges.
Hampton has said she would not have used the SKDK contractor if she had known that Dunn and SKDK were working with Madigan, calling it a conflict of interest that should have been disclosed to her.
After several days of questions from the Tribune, SKDK apologized last week, saying, it understood “in retrospect” that the “decision to work with then-Speaker Madigan’s campaign on these matters was an error in light of the support Ms. Hampton was receiving from another firm through a separate initiative we were proud to support.”
Welch issued a statement Monday saying House Democrats are “allies for women, for victims, and for survivors. It’s what we stand and fight for every single day.”
“The glaring conflict of interest and conduct in this case sends a chilling message to victims and survivors that they can’t even trust the people who claim to be their greatest supporters,” Welch said. “We find this to be deeply disheartening and disqualifying for us.”
Though Welch did not have direct ties to Dunn, House Democrats worked with television producers at SKDK during the last election cycle.
When Welch was on the verge of winning the speakership, the Tribune disclosed a 2002 Hillside police report in which his ex-girlfriend alleged he slammed her head into a kitchen countertop at his home after she called him “a loser.”
The report said Welch denied the allegations and that the accuser did not press charges after talking it over with a Welch relative. A Welch statement at the time he first sought the speakership said the “verbal argument occurred nearly two decades ago” and that he had “reconciled with the individual since that night.”
Welch found himself explaining what had happened at an impromptu meeting with a group made up primarily of female lawmakers before House Democrats voted for him to succeed Madigan in January 2021.
Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a Chicago Democrat, voted “present” on Welch’s speakership, explaining that the police report threw her into a ”tailspin” because she grew up in a violent home and she didn’t have time to “process” the allegations. Cassidy supported Welch in his reelection as speaker this year.
Reached Monday, Cassidy said she asked Welch to make it clear in his responses about SKDK that House Democrats stand by victims and that their caucus would not work with SKDK moving forward. Cassidy maintained SKDK should have “at the very least” disclosed to Hampton the arrangement with SKDK and Madigan because not learning of it until years later was a “gut punch.”
By the time a victim has “someone who says they’re helping you, you’ve already been traumatized,” Cassidy said.
“While this error in judgment happened more than five years ago, we understand the decision made by (Illinois) House Democrats,” SKDK spokesman Mike Czin said in a statement Monday. “We are proud of the work we have done to support survivors, and we will redouble our efforts to regain trust.”
