House Speaker Chris Welch took the extraordinary actions
last week of permanently kicking Rep. Fred Crespo, D- Hoffman Estates out of
the House Democratic caucus, stripping him of his legislative staff, removing
him from his appropriations committee chair’s position and booting him from the
bicameral Legislative Audit Commission.
Speaker Welch also suspended a Democratic staffer who
reportedly helped Crespo prepare an alternative budget plan, which is what got
both people axed.
Rep. Crespo took me aside last Tuesday night at a reception
and told me he was preparing to unveil a budget proposal that he believed could
help the state weather at least some of the fiscal pain that the Republican
Congress and the Trump administration were about to inflict on Illinois and all
other states.
The very next day, Speaker Welch lowered the boom. Hard.
Replacing an appropriations committee chair with barely two
weeks to go in the spring session and tough budget votes ahead is not exactly
commonplace. I’ve never seen such a thing in 35 years of doing this.
A source within the House Democratic operation said Welch
told Crespo he hadn’t been engaging this session with the House’s top
budget negotiators, appropriations staff, other members and the House Speaker
himself.
But the final straw was Crespo’s budget proposal, which was
far outside the “silo” of his appropriations committee’s purview, multiple
sources said.
Crespo’s budget idea would have at least temporarily freed
up about $4 billion in state spending in the upcoming fiscal year. The proposal
would’ve withheld state funds from discretionary programs, created $1.6 billion
in contingency reserves (which has been done in previous tight budget years),
and allowed short-term borrowing from special state funds.
Crespo almost tanked the state’s crucial revenue bill last
May by telling his fellow Democrats to “vote your conscience” during floor
debate. Several moderate, House Democrats wound up voting against the bill, and
it took hours to pass the measure.
Now, however, Crespo has even less to lose by going all-out
against the budget plan since his powers have been stripped. The end of session
budget vote was already going to be difficult, and now it could be even more
fraught with peril if Crespo spends the remaining session days publicly and
privately dumping on the budget plan.
But, maybe not, because no House Democrats rose to defend
Crespo during a closed-door caucus meeting on Thursday, although some were
grumbling privately.
Speaker Welch clearly took the caucus reaction (or lack
thereof) as confirmation that he was right to move against Crespo: “I levied
the decision that I levied, and I’m comfortable with it,” Welch told me after
the Thursday caucus meeting. “I slept well last night. And from the reaction of
my leadership team and members, they believe I made the right decision as
well.”
Asked if Crespo has a path back to caucus membership, Welch
told me: “No. We’re not going to tolerate that level of disrespect to our
caucus. In my opinion, there’s no way back.”
When I asked Welch if ejecting Crespo from the caucus was a
disproportionate response to what Crespo did, Welch gave two reasons for his
decision.
First, Crespo’s use of his committee chair role to pursue an
agenda which runs counter to shared caucus goals: “He’s free to speak his mind.
He’s free to vote his conscience, just like other members have done,” he said,
but added that no one would be allowed to use their official leadership roles
“to pursue an agenda that is antithetical to our shared goals” of passing a budget.
Second, Welch said that last week’s “rogue” behavior by
Crespo was not isolated: “It wasn’t because of a single instance. It’s because
of cumulative instances.”
“I can’t allow someone to go rogue and be an individual,”
Welch said.
Whew.
Speaker Welch also described his final sit-down with Crespo:
“At two or three different points, he realized that what he did was wrong
because he tried to apologize a couple of times.”
Crespo, however, claimed Welch said he felt like the member
had stabbed him in the back. Crespo said he apologized to Welch if he took his
actions that way because it wasn’t his intent. Crespo said he did not apologize
for what he actually did.
Welch said he wasn’t concerned about Crespo using the
remaining session days to try and pull votes off the budget. “I believe that we
have better systems in place than we did last year, and so I don’t have the
same level of concern this year as last year.”