By John Ruberry
Last week, yes know it’s a cliche, but hell froze over in Illinois when Boss Michael Madigan was indicted on 22 corruption counts. I was a common assumption that Madigan never used email–after all, the feds might be reading those messages.
But the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, led by a Donald Trump appointee, John Lausch, got the job done
Coded language didn’t work. Madigan cronies, in secretly recorded conversations, would avoid Madigan’s name, referring to him as “our friend” or “a friend of ours.” Ironically, the mafia name for themselves is “La Cosa Nostra,” which roughly translates from Italian into “our thing” or “this thing of ours.”
I’ve written about Madigan many times at Da Tech Guy. In short, he’s the man who destroyed Illinois. When Madigan was first elected as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives, Illinois had 26 electoral votes. For the 2024 presidential election the Land of Lincoln will make do with just 19. Illinois has lost population every year since 2014 and over 100,000 people bailed on Madiganstan from July 2020 thru July 2021.
Corruption is rampant in Illinois. And Illinois faces a millstone with Madigan’s dirty fingerprints all over it, unfunded state pension obligations, among the worst among the fifty states. Madigan was more interested in rewarding his public-sector union pals than properly funding their pension plans.
In 1983, Madigan was elected by his fellow Democrats as state House speaker and served, with the exception of a two-year span in the 1990s when the Republicans won control of the lower chamber, until last year, when the hint of scandal finally caught up with him. In 1998 Madigan was elected chairman of the state Democratic Party. Madigan remains committeeman of Chicago’s 13th Ward, a post he’s held since 1969. That seems like an insignificant position, but in 2007 when another ethically challenged pol was elected of as chairman of the Cook County Regular Democratic Organization, “the Machine,” there was just one nomination–for Joseph Berrios. Madigan nominated him.
Since the 1970s, the Boss has been a partner in a small but lucrative Chicago law firm, Madigan and Getzendanner, which specializes in property tax appeals. Who sets property tax rates? Politicians of course, most of whom are Democrats in Blue Illinois.
There is the Machine–but then there is what the federal indictment of Madigan calls “the Madigan Enterprise.”
Defendant MICHAEL J. MADIGAN, defendant MICHAEL F. McCLAIN, the Office of the Speaker, the Thirteenth Ward Democratic Organization, Madigan & Getzendanner, and others known and unknown together constituted an enterprise as that term is defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 1961(4), that is, a group of individuals and entities associated in fact (referred to herein as the
“Madigan Enterprise” or the “enterprise”). The Madigan Enterprise was engaged in,
and its activities affected, interstate commerce. The Madigan Enterprise constituted
an ongoing organization whose members functioned as a continuing unit for the common
purpose of achieving the objectives of the enterprise.The purposes of the Madigan Enterprise included but were not limited to:
(i) to exercise, to preserve, and to enhance MADIGAN’s political power and financial
well-being; (ii) to financially reward MADIGAN’s political allies, political workers, and
associates for their loyalty, association with, and work for MADIGAN; and (iii) to
generate income for members and associates of the enterprise through illegal activities.The illegal activities committed by members and associates of the Madigan
Enterprise included, but were not limited to: (a) soliciting and receiving bribes and
unlawful personal financial advantage from persons and parties having business with the
State of Illinois and the City of Chicago, or otherwise subject to the authority and powers
vested in MADIGAN and other public officials acting on MADIGAN’s behalf; (b) using
MADIGAN’s powers as Speaker, including his ability to affect the progress of bills in the
House of Representatives, as well as his control over the resources of the Office of the
Speaker, including its staff, in order to cause third parties to financially reward
MADIGAN, his political allies, political workers, and associates; (c) using threats,
intimidation, and extortion to solicit benefits from private parties; and (d) using facilities
of interstate commerce to coordinate, plan, and further the goals of the enterprise.
In short, Madigan, according to the feds, was running a racket. Madigan supporters, the indictment alleges, were given no-show or little-show jobs, and the graft goes beyond state and local government. Much of the indictment covers Madigan and his associates allegedly strong-arming Commonwealth Edison, the electric utility for Northern Illinois, in exchange for legislation favoring the company.
Madigan was typically unanimously or near-unanimously reelected House speaker and party chair. The rest of the Democratic Party was along for the ride. All the while they were calling Republicans evil, racist, and lots of other things.
More from that indictment.
MADIGAN utilized his position as Chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois to influence and garner loyalty from legislators by providing or withholding staff and funding to legislators and their
campaigns [bold print emphasis mine]. MADIGAN utilized his position as a partner in Madigan & Getzendanner to reap the benefits of private legal work unlawfully steered to his law firm. MADIGAN
directed the activities of his close friend and associate, McCLAIN, who carried out illegal
activity at MADIGAN’s direction.
McClain, by the way, is a former member of the state House and a longtime Madigan crony.
As for Madigan, politically he is a soulless person, other than maybe thinking of himself as an FDR/JFK New Deal/New Frontier Democrat. Madigan was all about the power and the money to keep that power, reminiscent, not of the political bosses of old, such as New York’s Willam M. Tweed or his idol, Chicago’s Richard J. Daley, but as a political version of V.M. Varga from Season 3 of Fargo. That villain was fabulously wealthy, but Varga wore the same cheap business suit every day–he slept every night in a tractor trailer. Yes, Madigan lives well, but his first love, perhaps his only one, is power.
For sixteen years of Boss Madigan’s reign of error and terror, Illinois’ attorney general was his daughter, Lisa.
And do you seriously believe that his fellow Illinois Democrats didn’t smell the stench? After all, Madigan, who was also a master gerrymanderer, was good to them. With Madigan in charge in the state House and their party, they almost always won. Only when the Commonwealth Edison scandal got too close to the Boss did the Dems in the state House dump him. Madigan resigned his party chair post shortly after his ouster from the speaker’s post.
Illinois Democrats knew Madigan was running a cronyism machine. They always did. And they didn’t care.
Madigan won’t be on the ballot in Illinois this fall. But the Little Madigans will be.
John Ruberry regularly blogs from the Chicago area at Marathon Pundit and is a Commonwealth Edison customer.
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