Editorial: Report is an indictment of a culture, not just one manager

It seems pretty safe to say that Tim Mapes isn't going to give anyone competition for Boss of the Year. An independent investigation of the working conditions in the office of the Illinois speaker of the House describes Mapes as the overseer of a culture of intimidation and bullying that spread outward into the state Democratic Party itself.

Assuming the description of his management style is accurate, Mapes' ouster as Michael Madigan's chief of staff and executive director of the state Democratic Party is understandable and must have come as a welcome relief for those who worked with him. But the report by attorney Maggie Hickey, a former federal prosecutor and former state executive inspector general, is more than an assessment of one very unsympathetic political operative. It's an indictment of an entire office culture.

Speaker Madigan called for Hickey's report in June 2018, after complaints circulated about sexual harassment in his office. In a press release Tuesday, Madigan said he "welcomed this independent review to better understand the workplace culture within the Office of the Speaker and to help improve the environment in the Capitol."

We'll have to take the speaker at his word on that. It does strain credulity to imagine that Mapes was able to build a four-decade career in Springfield, including 25 years in Madigan's office, without anyone in power noticing a management style that was as overt and prevalent as Hickey describes. Whatever the case, Madigan said he has implemented reforms, many similar to some recommended by Hickey, to address the issues that have been raised, and we can only hope he is managing the changes closely.

Whether the offenses are limited to Madigan's office or represent a broader problem in leadership in Springfield cannot be precisely determined. It's certainly possible that other leadership offices are managed more appropriately.

But it's also worth remembering that Hickey's findings come in the wake of a 2017 letter signed by more than 300 women describing rampant misogyny and harassment in Springfield. In that context, the portrait of Mapes she paints seems to show less an isolated deviation than someone who simply took accepted norms to extreme lengths.

So, her findings deserve attention from everyone in state government. She states that a common theme from those she interviewed was that, despite its ugly history, Madigan's office has the capacity to "use its power to eliminate harassment and discrimination from the Capitol workplace by being transparent, accountable, and a model for other workplaces and legislatures."

We hope the speaker, and everyone in power in Springfield, recognizes that objective requires more than shedding one bad supervisor.