Pritzker lawyers: Discrimination suit full of ‘falsehoods,’ ‘rhetoric’—not facts

Lawyers for Democratic Gov.-elect J.B. Pritzker on Friday asked a judge to toss out a racial discrimination lawsuit filed by 10 campaign workers — characterizing their federal complaint as littered with “mischaracterizations, distortions, and outright falsehoods.”

Facts were what was missing from the bombshell lawsuit, Pritzker’s lawyers contend.

The lawsuit was filed just 19 days before the election and was an unexpected campaign development. And it came after plaintiffs approached the campaign with an unusual demand: $7.5 million. The plaintiffs — all field organizers — claim in the suit that the campaign “has been [a] cesspool of racial discrimination and harassment.”

Pritzker has publicly called the claims “untrue.”

On Friday, his legal team did the same, filing a motion to dismiss the suit.

“Everyone has the right to file a lawsuit, but everyone must plead plausible claims for relief. The Complaint is notably full of sweeping legal conclusions, overheated rhetoric, and rank speculation,” lawyers for Pritzker’s campaign wrote in the U.S. District Court filing.

“But what is most notable is what the Complaint does not contain — factual allegations demonstrating that Plaintiffs’ claims for relief are plausible,” the filing says.

The filing calls the accusations “baseless,” saying there are no facts to back up allegations of an adverse employment action because of race; being fired, demoted or paid less because of race; having a race-based hostile work environment; or anyone being subjected to “severe or pervasive harassment because of his or her race.”

It also states that five of the 10 plaintiffs were placed on administrative leave after filing the suit, pending an investigation.

The filing goes piece by piece in dissecting some of the allegations, while calling them “bald conclusions” and “a hodgepodge of irrelevant or vague statements.”

In another filing supporting their motion to dismiss, lawyers say there’s “no basis for individual liability” for most of the defendants on discrimination and harassment claims, including Lt. Gov.-elect Juliana Stratton, Pritzker’s campaign manager and newly named Chief of Staff Anne Caprara, and his deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.

The defendants were individually named in an amended complaint filed on Election Day. The amended complaint also added in a reference to two campaign workers who were fired after one was spotted on a social media post wearing a charcoal face mask that resembled blackface.

Eight of the 10 plaintiffs held a press conference prior to the election, contending the suit wasn’t politically motivated. One worker, Maxwell Little, said he’d filed complaints about the way he’d been treated while working for the campaign, but to no avail: “We were ignored, silenced, intimidated and forced to endure their abuse of power,” Little said.

Little is addressed in Friday’s filing, with lawyers stating the campaign responded to Little’s complaint by setting up a conference call with campaign leadership during which Caprara explained the campaign had investigated the incident and reprimanded a campaign worker for asking the organizers she supervised to not “say anything stupid” during sensitivity training.

Lawyers plan to argue their motion to dismiss in federal court on Nov. 27.

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