23 Nov 2020

Michael Madigan and the Culture of Political Favors

By Rich Miller

On page nine of last week’s federal indictment of four people accused of conspiring to bribe House Speaker Michael Madigan with favors from ComEd is this heading: “Defendants and Relevant Individuals. ”But the first person listed is not one of the defendants. “Public Official A was the Speaker of the House of Representatives,” the list begins.

16 Nov 2020

Does Chuy Garcia Have the Brass to Grab Mike Madigan’s Mantle?

By Rich Miller

With the announcement by Representative Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield) earlier this month that he will not vote to reelect Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in January, the opposition numbered eight House Democrats, with at least a few more privately leaning their way. They’ll need 13 or 14 Democrats, depending on final general-election results, to deprive Madigan of the speaker’s gavel. So, they may need some help to get over the hump. And there’s one person outside the House who may have enough votes to tip the balance either way.

09 Nov 2020

State Democrat Postmortem: Bad Timing, Bad Decisions, and Speaker Madigan’s Continuing Presence

By Rich Miller

Illinois Democrats were hoping for some big election-night wins last week, but now everything has devolved into finger-pointing chaos. Governor JB Pritzker’s graduated-income tax proposal was in some doubt for a while. The governor’s campaign chose not to advertise early because of the delicacies of politics during a pandemic, so they passed up a chance at total dominance of the playing field during crucial months.

02 Nov 2020

Pritzker and Lightfoot Brace for Mitigation Blowback

By Rich Miller

For generations now, Chicago has had its own separate set of state laws for just about every topic under the sun. The city's mayor is allowed to appoint the school board, Chicago has its own "working cash fund" law, the state's mayoral-veto law does not apply to the city, and the city has a unique exemption allowing it to deduct money from worker paychecks. From big to archaic, the list is almost endless. So, when you've grown accustomed to doing it your own way for a century or so, you may start thinking you're a special case in literally everything. And that seems to be what happened last week.

26 Oct 2020

State-Mitigated Restaurants and Bars of DuPage and Kane Counties Are Getting Restless

By Rich Miller

As of October 21, hospital admissions for patients with COVID-like illnesses had increased 75 percent in two weeks within the Illinois Department of Public Health's “Region 8,” which includes DuPage and Kane counties. As of October 23, only 25 percent of hospital beds in Region 8 were open, down from a third earlier that week. The state's hospitalization “red zone” is 20-percent availability. At that point, regions are automatically put into state mitigation.

19 Oct 2020

Representative Terra Costa Howard Unequivocal on Whether Madigan Should Stay or Go

By Rich Miller

After Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan appeared in all but actual name in ComEd's deferred federal-prosecution agreement, Representative Terra Costa Howard (D-Glen Ellyn) was one of the first Democratic state Representatives to call on him to resign without the qualifying “if he did it” language. And the freshman Democratic legislator has been breaking pretty much all precedent the past month or so by putting significant campaign money where her mouth is.

12 Oct 2020

GOP House Leader Durkin Wouldn’t Mind Seeing Speaker Madigan Plead the Fifth

By Rich Miller

House Republican Leader Jim Durkin is a former prosecutor, and that outlook on life has never really left him. He's not big on a lot of criminal-justice reforms, even standing up to his party's president to oppose the early prison-release of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. He was staunchly opposed to legalizing cannabis. I'm sure that House Speaker Michael Madigan's highly-public legal troubles grate on Durkin to no end, as they would on almost any former prosecutor.

05 Oct 2020

When Treasurer Michael Frerichs Thinks Aloud, His Fellow State Democrats Suffer

By Rich Miller

It's well-known that the Illinois House Republicans (along with pretty much all Illinois Republicans) are using House Speaker Michael Madigan's bad reputation to bludgeon their Democratic opponents. Speaker Madigan has been enormously unpopular in Illinois. It's probably worse now because he's been in the news so much during the long federal investigation into ComEd and the company's resulting deferred-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney in Chicago.

21 Sep 2020

Special Committee Will Call Witnesses to Determine If Madigan Should Undergo Disciplinary Proceedings

By Rich Miller

During both the impeachment proceedings against Governor Rod Blagojevich and the disciplinary proceedings that led to the expulsion of State Representative Derrick Smith (D-Chicago), the Illinois House was able to call witnesses. But because of ongoing federal investigations in both instances, the U.S. Attorney limited what some of those witnesses could be asked. Governor Blagojevich had been charged with multiple felonies and Representative Smith had been caught on audio accepting a cash bribe.

14 Sep 2020

Twenty-One of Nine-Hundred-Plus Social Equity Applicants Win All 75 Pot Store Licenses

By Rich Miller

There's been much gnashing of teeth since the state announced that just 21 social-equity applicants had qualified for regional lotteries that will award 75 cannabis-dispensary store licenses. The 21 winning entities submitted well over 300 applications for those 75 licenses, which has forced a tie-breaking round.

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