West Cook News

State Rep. Chris Welch (D-Hillside) is being called out for apparent hypocrisy after posting a tweet accusing President Donald Trump of hating women when his own background includes a domestic violence charge.

The West Cook News previously reported that Welch was taken into custody on Jan. 12, 2002, by police in the Village of Hillside on accusations that he battered his girlfriend at the time, leaving a 4-inch bruise on her arm. Her name has been redacted from the copy of the police report that the West Cook News obtained.

The alleged victim told responding officers that during an argument when she had stopped by to collect personal items, Welch “grabbed her hair with both hands while in the kitchen and proceeded to slam her head backwards against the countertop.” At the time of the incident, Welch and the victim were no longer a couple.

President Donald Trump

Welch’s stepmother talked the victim out of pressing charges, so West was released from custody, according to the West Cook News report. The story said Welch, who had left the home when police arrived, later denied the incident took place.

Since running for office on the general election ballot in 2012, Welch has never faced a Republican challenger for his 7th District seat. His first election took place before the police report surfaced, but just barely. Although Bill Dwyer, a reporter with the Forest Park publication Forest Leaves, sought to obtain the report through a FOIA request, it was denied until after the election.

The story of alleged domestic abuse was never covered in 2012, but it may be relevant given a controversial Tweet the legislator posted May 30.

The following statement appeared on his @ChrisWelch_JD account: “We have a president who, if he could gut the Civil Rights Amendment of 1965, he would do it and do it now…I would rather rely on our U.S. Constitution than a law Donald Trump can [disassemble]. A man who hates women! He has no respect for women.”

In an ironic twist, the tweet was posted soon after Welch’s vote helped Illinois become the 37th state to ratify the federal Equal Rights Amendment, according to a report in The New York Times. As the Times explains, the 1972 act, which was never ratified by the required three-fourths of the states, would prevent states from denying rights based on sex.

Businessman and local talk radio host Dan Proft re-Tweeted Welch’s original Tweet, adding the following comment: “But at least he (Trump) doesn’t repeatedly slam a woman’s head on a countertop, huh, Chris Welch, JD/Officer of the Court?”

Proft, one of the hosts of Chicago’s Morning Answer, is a principal in Local Government Information Services, which owns this publication.

In his bio on Ballotopedia.org, Welch is described as a Chicago native who earned a law degree from The John Marshall Law School in 1997. A former TV news assignment editor with a bachelor’s degree in speech, Welch is also board president of District 209 of the Proviso Township High Schools.