Editorial: Michael Madigan trial has echoes of Richard J. Daley

The trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, now in its ninth week and set to run into the new year, has captured the attention of political junkies but not so much the public at large.

We think there are a number of reasons for this surprising state of affairs. First and foremost, the election of Donald Trump to a second term, the budget crisis in Chicago and the other misadventures of Mayor Brandon Johnson have sucked up a lot of the local political oxygen.

Also, the main revelation of the unseemly political machine Madigan led for decades occurred last year during the so-called “ComEd Four” trial, which resulted in felony convictions of Commonwealth Edison’s former CEO and Michael McClain, the long-time lobbyist and close friend of Madigan’s who’s on trial yet again along with the former speaker. A fair chunk of Madigan’s prosecution has covered the same ground.

But one new wrinkle caught our attention. Prosecutors called witnesses to the stand Wednesday alleging in essence that Madigan intervened on behalf of his son Andrew to pressure a Pilsen nonprofit to give its insurance work to Andrew Madigan’s firm, Alliant Insurance Services. From 2019 to 2021, Andrew Madigan allegedly pocketed at least $43,000 personally after The Resurrection Project, the Southwest Side nonprofit, hired Alliant, according to testimony heard in the trial.

The evidence was compelling that Andrew Madigan likely wouldn’t have won the business had his father not gotten involved. During a 2018 conversation recorded by then-Ald. Daniel Solis, who was wearing a wire in cooperation with the feds, Madigan complained to Solis that The Resurrection Project hadn’t given Andrew its business after Solis previously had arranged a meeting. The speaker wanted Solis to make matters clearer to the nonprofit.

“After the meeting, you know, Andrew tried to follow up,” Madigan was recorded telling Solis. “And never … never got returned calls.” Solis responded that he’d contact The Resurrection Project and its executive director, Raul Raymundo, again.

“Just ask him, ‘Give Andrew something.’ … Give him a chance to show what he, what he can do,” Madigan said.

No, that wasn’t Marlon Brando in “The Godfather.” That was the longest-serving state House speaker in American history speaking those lines.

Sure enough, Raymundo got the message. He testified Thursday that he emailed Andrew Madigan within days of hearing again from Solis and introduced the younger Madigan to the organization’s chief financial officer. It took a little over a year, but Alliant got the work.

No evidence was presented that any threats, implied or explicit, were issued to ensure Andrew Madigan’s calls and emails were returned. It was a testament to Madigan’s power that such heavy-handed tactics were rarely necessary. If the speaker is asking for a favor, best not disappoint.

Madigan’s boost for his son was not the first time in Chicago history that a high-powered pol helped an adult child find their footing in the insurance business. Insurance is one of those services every individual and every organization — for-profit, nonprofit or government — must buy. The industry, thus, tends to draw more than the usual interest from power brokers like Madigan. It’s not difficult for such people to put the squeeze on municipalities or nonprofits, many of which depend on state government for revenue.

Mayor Richard J. Daley in the 1970s famously erupted with an expletive when confronted with apparent strings he’d pulled to help his progeny, including son John, who was beginning a decades-long career in insurance. After the firm employing John Daley had won lucrative business from the city of Chicago, Boss Daley fumed, “If a man can’t put his arms around his sons, then what kind of world are we living in?”

Now 82 years old, Madigan was a Daley protege, getting his start in politics and government thanks to Daley in the 1960s. Madigan first won election to the Illinois House in 1970, again with Daley’s help.

What last year’s “ComEd Four” proceedings and the current trial have underscored is how the Machine-style politics that Daley perfected of rewarding valuable precinct workers and important political allies with paid gigs continued under Madigan. The difference was that, as courts clamped down on government patronage, Madigan turned to those nonprofits and businesses whose success depended in large part on the state (be it from grants or favorable regulations or whatever) to take care of those in his favor. And those beneficiaries in turn would perform the political work to keep Madigan in power.

Commonwealth Edison, which admitted in an agreement with federal prosecutors to bribing Madigan with jobs and contracts for his allies throughout much of the 2010s, was Exhibit A in this approach. But ComEd was far from the only company or organization that played by these largely unspoken Madigan rules.

“What kind of world are we living in?” “Give him a chance to show what he can do.”

We’ve yet to see how a jury (and potentially the U.S. Supreme Court) rules on whether Madigan broke the law by keeping the Daley Machine operating long after many naively had declared it dead. But, whatever the outcome, his disgrace and removal from power thanks to federal prosecutors and law enforcement is a great service to Illinois, which maybe can finally live in a world less ruled by clout.

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