The swagger that Illinois’ Democrats have displayed since taking full control of Springfield three years ago had already been tamped down by the political realities of confronting crime and COVID when corruption reared up as one more daunting campaign issue heading into this year’s elections.
The federal charges filed Wednesday against former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, long the state’s most powerful politician and the man who set agendas for the Democrats and the state for decades, represent a staggering indictment of Springfield’s political and power culture, even though Madigan was dethroned more than a year ago.
Don Tracy, the state Republican chairman, left little doubt about the role Madigan will play up and down this election year’s ballot.
“The Illinois Republican Party is committed to exposing and defeating every last Democrat still around that accepted Madigan’s money, voted Madigan’s way or defended him as the leader of their party. The list of those needing to be held accountable for what happened is long and it starts with Gov. J.B. Pritzker,” Tracy said.
The 160-page indictment, alleging Madigan and his allies used his powerful political position to enrich himself, his close confidants and loyal staffers, was even more stunning in scope than the 2008 arrest and indictment of disgraced former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich — in part because Madigan had always fostered a belief that he was smart enough to know how to stop before lines of illegality were crossed.
Madigan denied any wrongdoing following the federal charges, just as he has since a federal investigation in 2020 resulted in Commonwealth Edison agreeing to pay a $200 million fine for allegedly providing favors to Madigan allies in exchange for favorable consideration of the utility’s desired legislation.
It was the ComEd investigation that led Democrats to oust Madigan from his post as the nation’s longest-serving House speaker last year as they sought to usher in talk of a new day for party leadership in the statehouse.
Republicans have tried to use Madigan to target Democrats for years with little success. Now, his indictment provides the GOP an opportunity to resurrect the former speaker as the state’s political boogeyman and the face of Democratic corruption.
Within hours of the 22-count corruption indictment being announced, not only did Republican candidates for governor, other statewide offices and the General Assembly use it as an attack point on Democrats, even GOP contenders seeking federal office, far outside the sphere of Springfield, jumped on the bandwagon, among them U.S. Reps. Rodney Davis of Taylorville and Darin LaHood of Peoria.
“Starting with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Madigan’s allies in the Illinois Democrat Party will have to answer for why they enabled this corruption for so long that contributed greatly to our state’s challenges,” LaHood said in a statement.
Pat Brady, a former state GOP chair who launched a “Fire Madigan” program more than a decade ago, said Madigan’s indictment will create a perception shift among voters.
“Politically, you can talk about someone getting indicted. But after it comes down, there’s a big difference. This is an exclamation point. Now, it’s not just something that the Republicans are saying. Now the headlines are, ‘Madigan Inc.,’ ‘Madigan Enterprise.’ That’s how Springfield ran,” said Brady, who is working for Gary Rabine, one of five potential Republican challengers to Pritzker.
After Madigan resigned from the legislature in February of last year, Pritzker issued a statement saying “the people of Illinois have much to be grateful for thanks to his dedicated public service and the many sacrifices he and his family made to make a difference in our lives.”
But on Wednesday, Pritzker issued a statement calling Madigan’s alleged conduct “deplorable and a stark violation of the public’s trust” and said Madigan “must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
At the same time, a top Pritzker aide acknowledged that the governor spoke to federal agents about Madigan for an hour, but was “only a witness.”
The indictment notes Madigan said he would seek a high-paying state board job from Pritzker for former Ald. Danny Solis, now a government informant. U.S. Attorney John Lausch said “there is no allegation in this indictment against the governor or his staff” or that the job was ever awarded.
Democratic lawmakers quickly sought to tout how they deposed Madigan and replaced him with the state’s first Black speaker, Emanuel “Chris” Welch. Nineteen House Democrats who opposed Madigan’s renomination to lead the chamber put out a statement saying they “knew that our chamber, our state, and our party deserved better leadership and the unfolding corruption scandal would only continue to erode public confidence.”
The group called the indictment is a “watershed moment for our state.”
But Madigan’s indictment follows a slew of recent federal corruption charges against Democratic state lawmakers. Just last month state Sen. Tom Cullerton of Villa Park resigned after entering a plea deal in a federal ghost payroll case.
In addition to state legislators, longtime Ald. Edward Burke faces trial on corruption charges, while last month former Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, grandson of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, was convicted on federal tax charges, becoming the 37th alderman to be found guilty of federal crimes since the early 1970s.
Some Democrats, privately and perhaps optimistically, said they believed Madigan’s legal troubles would have little influence on an electorate that has already made up their minds one way or another after years of Republican efforts to tarnish the former speaker.
“It would be my guess the electorate at large doesn’t care, emotionally, by the time the election rolls around in November,” said one veteran Democratic lawmaker who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about internal caucus discussions. “He’s been demonized so much already, with Republicans saying he’s corrupt. They’ve been saying that for years, and I don’t think (the indictment) is going to change people’s minds.”
Still, the lawmaker acknowledged, “There’s no doubt it adds another weight as we’re treading water. It adds another weight. But I don’t think it’s as big as the crime issue.”
Addressing crime has indeed dominated many early GOP campaigns. Republicans have seized upon sweeping criminal justice changes passed by Democrats and approved by Pritzker to blame the party for recent outbreaks of violent crime — even though crime has risen in many places nationally and major elements of the new measure, such as cashless bail, have yet to go into effect.
“The other side is using crime as a bludgeon for the next election,” said a longtime Democrat who was not authorized to speak for the House majority, “and there’s a political reality that people want to address crime.”
The issue provides inroads to swing suburban districts that had once been reliable Republican territory but have changed demographically and ideologically in favor of Democrats in recent years.
But an internal poll conducted for Senate Democrats indicated that crime falls below taxes and other concerns among suburban voters, according to a senator who was not authorized to speak about internal caucus discussions. Only in Chicago was crime a top issue, the legislator said, in part because random gun violence being seen in parts of the city that have long been relatively unscathed by violence.
To counter Republican attacks, Democratic legislators are looking to take up issues in Springfield this spring that include carjacking, smash-and-grab retail theft and ghost guns, which can be manufactured from home kits without serial numbers or other ways to trace them.
There’s also an effort to provide increased funding for state and local police to both attract and retain officers after retirements of police hired with an influx of federal dollars in the mid-1990s.
As for the response to COVID, the other main line of Republican attack, Pritzker got an assist when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance belatedly backed his decision to drop the statewide mask mandate at the end of February.
Republicans had sought to use court rulings over the school mask mandate to bolster their attacks on Pritzker’s power during the pandemic, while Democratic legislators had been content to let Pritzker use his authority for pandemic mitigation efforts, allowing them to escape any public criticism.
But with heated debates over school masking policies pushed by Republicans and their allies elevating the political stakes, particularly in the suburbs, Democrats have also grown weary of the mitigation policies. Even an effort to remove some protesting anti-mask Republicans from the House floor for violating its mask rules found some Democrats defecting.
If a new and dangerous variant emerges and there’s another coronavirus surge, Pritzker could turn to the legislature for new mandates to forestall any future court challenges But Democrats would be eager to avoid doing anything to reimpose any of the mandates Pritzker ordered during the first two years of the pandemic.
“Any further action we take on COVID at this point will be in conjunction to if there’s another surge running that will be significant like omicron or delta,” the lawmaker said. “But I think right now, the will of the General Assembly is like, this thing’s going away, let it go away.”
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