Speaker removes Democratic Rep. Fred Crespo from committee chairmanship
for ‘not communicating’
[May 16, 2025]
By Ben Szalinski
SPRINGFIELD – House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch made the extraordinary
move of removing an appropriations committee chair on Wednesday with two
weeks left in the legislative session and a tightening fiscal landscape.
Speaking exclusively to Capitol News Illinois on Thursday, Welch,
D-Hillside, said he removed Rep. Fred Crespo, D-Hoffman Estates, from
the Democratic caucus as well for lack of communication with caucus
leaders.
Crespo has become a voice of dissent in the Democratic caucus against
growing spending by the state, imploring fellow lawmakers to exercise
fiscal restraint and not look to taxpayers to plug budget holes.
While he voted for the fiscal year 2025 budget last May, he was one of
several Democrats to withhold their votes on a corresponding revenue
package, helping to set up an all-night scramble for Welch’s House
leaders to make sure the measure had enough votes to pass.
Welch told Jak Tichenor, host of the “Illinois Lawmakers” program, that
he implemented new processes for communicating with leadership about the
budget this year and Crespo “chose not to be a part of those processes
and to go on his own” as lawmakers work toward a May 31 deadline to pass
the budget.
“The breaking point was as an appointed chair of one of my
appropriations committees, not communicating with the chief of staff,
not communicating with the lead budgeteer – Leader (Robyn) Gabel – (and)
not communicating with me as the speaker,” Welch said.
Crespo declined to comment immediately on Welch’s decision. He has
represented northwest Cook County in the House since 2007 and was the
chair of the House Appropriations-General Services Committee until
Wednesday. The committee meets with various state agencies to hear
budget requests.
Crespo’s excommunication from the caucus means he is barred from private
meetings among House Democrats.
Brady Burden, a staff member on the committee who was also placed on
administrative leave for an undisclosed reason, told Capitol News
Illinois he worked with Crespo to put together some numbers on the
budget to see where the state can save money. But Welch said his
decision wasn’t because of Crespo’s independent exercise.
“If we’re going to deliver things for the collective that’s good for the
state of Illinois, we have to follow processes,” Welch said. “And the
chairman chose not to have any conversations with anyone, despite those
processes calling for that.”
Gov. JB Pritzker told reporters Thursday he was aware of Welch’s
decision but declined to say more.
Welch has implemented several changes this spring to processes in the
House, including bringing on new top aides and revamping his budget
leadership team with new members.
Burden argued he communicated Crespo’s activities to his superiors on
House staff “to make sure that nobody was being blindsided by it.”
“There was a level of secrecy to the project, but I think the concern
was more that it didn’t get leaked until there was a finished product,”
he said.
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House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch speaks to host Jak Tichenor on
the latest episode of “Illinois Lawmakers.” He discussed the state
budget and his decision to remove a House member from the Democratic
caucus. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry Nowicki)
Crespo’s expulsion is the second time in the last two years Welch has
kicked a member out of the caucus. Welch removed former Rep. Mary
Flowers, D-Chicago, from meetings in 2023 following allegedly
disrespectful behavior toward staff members. Welch then backed a
successful primary opponent against Flowers in 2023.
While he ultimately voted for the budget last May, Crespo rose on the
House floor during debate over the bill to criticize leadership in his
party for not considering spending restraints, such as hiring freezes
and limiting appropriations to state agencies to 95% of the funds they
asked for to force the agencies to lobby lawmakers for the other 5%.
Crespo warned the state faced a fiscal cliff if lawmakers continue to
increase spending.
He’s continued those warnings this year, criticizing House Democratic
colleagues who have proposed bills that would require new state
appropriations.
“You can ask for everything, you can’t have it all,” Crespo said in
April as the House debated a bill that would require the state to
establish a program for student teachers to receive stipends, but didn’t
include any funding.
“We need to start prioritizing what we want; and at the end of the day,
taxpayers are going to pay for this,” he said. “And at this rate, we’re
just going to run out of taxpayers’ dollars to spend.”
The revenue plan passed the House last year with the minimum 60 votes
despite Democrats holding 78 seats in the chamber. Crespo told Capitol
News Illinois earlier this year he feared the FY25 revenue enhancements
that were enacted to close a roughly $900 million deficit would limit
lawmakers’ options to increase revenue as they consider the FY26 budget.
However, he later praised Pritzker’s introduced budget as one of the
best he has heard since joining the legislature, saying he was glad
Pritzker told lawmakers they must come up with spending cuts to
correspond to any spending increases they propose.
House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, told Tichenor it is
“really going to be a loss for the state of Illinois that he is no
longer in those positions.”
Burden has been the leading voice of a House Democratic staff effort to
create a legislative staff union. That is not currently authorized under
state law, which previously prompted Welch to file legislation
authorizing it. Burden and other staff members have filed a lawsuit
seeking recognition under the state’s constitutional right to collective
bargaining.
“That’s something I’ll be talking about with my counsel, about whether
or not this is something that constitutes a form of retaliation,” Burden
said.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
