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player ready...More than 18 months have passed since Michael Madigan first showed up as “Public Official A” in the federal corruption case involving Commonwealth Edison. On Wednesday, federal authorities finally indicted the former Illinois House speaker on multiple charges of public corruption. They placed him at the head of an alleged “criminal enterprise.”
Even though many of the alleged bad acts were known, due to the criminal complaint against ComEd, its president, Anne Pramaggiore, and three others, the Madigan indictment provided new and telling details, to be sure.
Contrary to the myth that Madigan was too smart to leave tracks, for example, the former House speaker actually did use the phone, and federal wiretaps apparently recorded him uttering words that advanced the alleged corruption scheme. There are no Madigan emails cited, but in several incidents cited in the indictment, he essentially dictates an email that advances an allegedly illegal scheme.
Eighteen months is a long time. Certainly that was long enough for Gov. J.B. Pritzker and legislative leaders to conduct a major ethics overhaul.
Should have happened? Yes. Did it? Not really.
The indictment of Madigan — in the midst of a legislative session in which ethics reform is not on the agenda — is a reminder of the callous reception in Springfield to statewide calls for reform. And just as surely, it’s a reminder that we the people need to demand better if we hope one day to see a cleaned-up state government.
The public shares the blame for inaction. Our elected officials aren’t acting with enough urgency, but we so far have let them get away with it.
Consider the opportunity that has been missed. Madigan was cited as “Public Official A” in the ComEd criminal complaint two summers ago. “Public Official A” had a familiar ring to it, harking back to Rod Blagojevich, the former governor then in prison, like three previous corrupt governors.
And the ComEd case was not a one-off, either. Martin Sandoval, the late chair of the state Senate’s Transportation Committee, pleaded guilty to public corruption charges before dying of COVID-19 complications. Then there was state Sen. Tom Cullerton, caught squeezing the Teamsters for a no-work job. He pleaded guilty last month.
This case count prompted some bold talk about reform, but leadership didn’t push for it, and the rank and file didn’t demand it. COVID-19 proved an unexpected disruption — and a convenient excuse. When a do-nothing legislative reform commission missed the deadline for proposing reforms, the General Assembly ignored that and moved on.
Pritzker ultimately signed a bill with weak reforms and called it a good start. In the hours after the indictment, he issued a statement saying the state has “tightened our ethics laws” and promising to “work with the General Assembly to restore the public’s trust.”
If they want that trust, there’s a lot of work ahead.
Lawmakers can start with the reforms recently passed. One of them — to close the so-called revolving door through which former lawmakers turn into lobbyists overnight — is laden with loopholes. The effort to strengthen the office of the legislative inspector general proved so wanting that the then-LIG, Carol Pope resigned in disgust, calling the office a “paper tiger.” She knew the minor tweaks to the LIG’s powers would never tame a feral Illinois legislature. A new LIG, former public defender and judge Michael McCuskey, was appointed, so at least someone is on the watch.
Regarding Pritzker’s promise to continue reform work, voters can use the occasion of an election year to let lawmakers know that we are watching. We expect more.
The legislative inspector general’s office still needs strengthening. The revolving door to lobbying still swings too freely. Conflicts of interest are not adequately reported, outside business activities are not adequately constrained and lobbying by elected officials still is not adequately banned.
The trouble is, no one in Springfield has even pretended that ethics will become a focus during the 2022 legislative session. House Speaker Chris Welch, who is seeking to overcome his origins as a Madigan protege, has signaled the spring session will focus on the budget, carjackings and organized shoplifting attacks, and the spending of federal COVID-19 relief funds — but not much else.
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Reformers — such as my group, the Better Government Association — will need to work hard just to get the fight for better government on the agenda in Springfield. The fall session likely is the soonest anything of substance might start.
The indictment of Madigan once was viewed as something so out of reach it was not worth talking about. Now that it’s here, any further delay in ethics reform risks losing a moment of opportunity, risks losing the public’s just anger.
For a generation, Madigan stood as an example of all that was awry with Illinois government: the failure of vision, the conflicts of interest, the lack of accountability, the outright corruption. If all of us — the governor, the legislature and the public — cannot use this epic occasion as a fulcrum for meaningful reform, then we’re also part of the problem.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
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