Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday said state Rep. Harry Benton needs to take “very seriously” both the investigation into his conduct and Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s call for Benton to resign, especially given how rare such a declaration is.

And Pritzker said that while he has not seen the investigative report that prompted Welch to say Benton, a Democrat from Plainfield, must resign or face possible expulsion from the House, the governor would not say whether he thinks the report should be made public.

“I think, yes, more transparency is always better in government,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference on Chicago’s North Side. “Here’s the challenge: When people make allegations, and, you know, in politics, as, you know, there are people who make false allegations against elected officials. They need to be investigated before they’re just sort of put out there under (an) official banner.

“And so, I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t know all the details. I would like to know all the details,” he continued. “Meanwhile, the legislature has put together a process and procedure for going through those with an independent legislative inspector general who’s doing the job of investigating.”

Pritzker’s comments came one day after Welch, a Democrat from Hillside, announced that Illinois Legislative Inspector General Michael McCuskey had completed his investigation, which the speaker said showed “clear patterns” of behavior that are “outrageous, unethical, and unbecoming of a member of the Illinois House of Representatives.”

Welch called for Benton to resign and said the House would begin the process to expel him if he refuses.

Benton did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday or Thursday.

Welch has not detailed the allegations against Benton, but a source described them to the Tribune as sexual harassment in nature. In February, Welch stripped Benton of eight committee and two subcommittee assignments after learning of the allegations, then forwarded them to McCuskey’s office for investigation.

It remains unclear if the report will be released.

Under legislative inspector general rules detailed on the LIG’s website, Welch has 20 days to respond in writing to McCuskey’s findings, including with a “description of any corrective or disciplinary action imposed or to be imposed.” If McCuskey agrees that Welch has taken appropriate action, McCuskey then has 30 days to deliver a statement to that effect to the Legislative Ethics Commission, which includes four Democratic and four Republican lawmakers and several commissioners.

The commission is the only entity that can release an inspector general’s investigative report publicly, and only in cases resulting in at least a three-day suspension, a firing or when the report is part of a disciplinary hearing, the website says. The last time an LIG investigative report was officially released to the public was in 2020.

Benton cannot be fired because he is an elected official. But if he declines to resign and Welch pursues expulsion, two-thirds of the House’s 118 members — 79 votes — would be needed to remove him. Democrats hold a 78-40 majority. A House member can be expelled only once for the same offense, and the General Assembly is not scheduled to reconvene until after the November general election.

Benton is up for reelection in November but if he resigns before that, Democratic officials in Kendall and Will counties, which make up his legislative district, would choose his replacement on the ballot.

Pritzker at the news conference noted that since Welch received the investigative report from McCuskey and that report prompted the speaker to call for Benton’s resignation or expulsion, “I think we should all take that very seriously, and certainly Representative Benton (would) want to take that very seriously. I do.”

“He (Welch) wouldn’t call for the resignation unless there was something or somethings in that report that are very, very serious,” Pritzker said. “The speaker doesn’t call for people’s resignation very often, and when he does and has some details in front of him, I trust that he is doing the right thing.”