* Let’s circle back to this Politico interview of House Speaker Welch…

Playbook: Critics also have concerns about allegations from before you became speaker, including being sued twice for unwanted advances. Why should voters view those situations differently?

Welch: “Those issues have been without merit. Cases have been brought against me that have been dismissed because they were without merit, and I have never shied away from talking about those issues.

Those two suits weren’t dismissed for lack of merit. They were dropped by the plaintiffs for different reasons.

* Wednesday Journal last week…

Welch reportedly became angry after two sisters who worked in senior positions at Proviso West high school rebuffed his attempts to hug them at a football game. He responded with an angry text.

Alexis Wallace, the former principal at Proviso West before Welch had her transferred, sat down with the Forest Leaves in March 2012 to discuss her experience with Welch as D209 board president and a threatening text she’d received from him.

Wallace said she saved the text, making certain her phone was charged even after she got a new phone. The saved text confirms allegations made by Wallace’s sister, Dylester Palm, a dean at Proviso West, in her federal lawsuit against Welch for complaints similar to Wallace’s. (Palm later dropped the lawsuit, citing her inability to pay for the cost of legal representation.)

Wallace held out her old Blackberry for the reporter to photograph. The phone number on the text was the same cell number that Welch had listed on his campaign filing documents. 

“I allowed them to be employed!” Welch’s text read. “And I’m the board president! Period! End of conversation. Things better change now. I won’t tolerate disresepect.” 

Welch then left no doubt that he saw himself as the primary authority at D209.

“I had a direct hand in helping them b here including u. No one else,” he said. “At the minimum, I deserve respect.”

More…

* And then there was this EEOC complaint filed against the district…

But that case was more than a little muddy. From the Tribune…

Welch asked for the order of protection to be thrown out and strenuously denied those allegations. He said it Johnson was harassing him, records show.

She “continued to aggressively pursue Welch through various forms of communication” after the breakup, Welch alleged.

And after Johnson was transferred to a different department and began to fear she would be fired, she sent him a text reading: “listen mother f—–! I if I get fired or demoted you getting your a– kicked and I’m going to the EEOC and tell them that you sexually harassed me!”

A copy of that text is filed in the court record.

Welch also produced texts that he believed to be from Johnson dating to April 2010, reading “lol you’re such a f– … go suck a d— loser” and “now there is an order protection that has been placed against you. Did you know that?”

Court records show Welch filed a report against Johnson with Hillside Police for telephone harassment, but he didn’t sign a complaint.

A few days later, Welch alleged, Johnson showed up at a school board meeting to hand Welch a copy of the federal lawsuit. Welch said in a filing that it was an effort to embarrass him, and proof that she was not in fact fearful of him.

After Welch raised those allegations in court, a judge dismissed the order of protection.

Johnson’s federal suit also was short-lived. Records indicate settlement talks began two months after it was filed. Johnson moved to dismiss the case shortly afterward. It’s unclear whether the Proviso school board settled the case.

* Either way, the cases were not “dismissed because they were without merit,” as Speaker Welch claimed to Politico. He undoubtedly believed they were without merit. But they were withdrawn by the plaintiffs.