“COULD THIS BE THE END OF (SPEAKER MADIGAN)?”

7/18/20

As many of you know, I occasionally deliver talks on Chicago politics to disparate groups around the Chicago area.   Invariably, a question comes from the crowd during one of the spirited Q&A sessions

“Will we ever get rid of Mike Madigan?”

My answer is a brief “No, not until the Speaker passes from this mortal coil,”

and then I move on.   If more detail is requested, I go into the many so far unsuccessful attempts by the media, Mr. Madigan’s political opponents, and various arms, usually federal, of law enforcement to “get” the Speaker and the repeated futility of these efforts.   Mr. Madigan, I point out, is a very careful man and, love him (very few of these in most audiences, certainly in mine) or hate him (just about everybody in these crowds), you have to admit that the Speaker is very good at what he does.  Watching Mr. Madigan work is sort of like watching a pro golfer work; even though you might not find watching golf especially entertaining, you have to admire somebody who can do anything as well as pro golfers can play pasture pool.   The difference, of course, is that, while the actions of pro golfers might induce us to a much-needed weekend afternoon snooze, they don’t result in making our lives more burdensome and expensive, as does Mr. Madigan, but I digress.

With reports that our local utility, Commonwealth Edison, has signed on to a deferred prosecution agreement that, while not mentioning Mr. Madigan by name, contains allegations that the electricity giant provided payments, jobs, some of the no-show or no-work variety, and other perquisites to various Madigan pals and cohorts in exchange for favorable treatment in Springfield, Mr. Madigan appears to be in serious trouble and may well be indicted soon.   So maybe Mike Madigan’s time has come…and not in a good way.

Maybe.

Mr. Madigan has been counted out before, albeit not at this level of detail and, presumably, seriousness, but he has always lived to fight, and prosper, another day.   So let us not, depending on our perspectives, either rejoice at or mourn for the political, and maybe legal, end of Mike Madigan yet.   However, I will make the following observations:

First, yes, Mike Madigan is careful; the stories provided as evidence for this contention are innumerable and have been repeated ad nauseam in this blog and in various quarters of the media.   Perhaps, though, he was not so careful in the choice of people in whom he chose to confide.   Former State Senator Martin Sandoval and former Alderman Danny Solis, apparently heavily involved in this caper, are not the type of people whom yours truly would entrust with my first and last name, let alone the types of things about which we read in connection with this particular imbroglio.   Mike McClain, allegedly a much closer, and longer term, confidante to Mr. Madigan, doesn’t appear to be the type of guy with the talent and honor that would induce one to delegate anything of great importance to him.   John Hooker, another lobbyist who allegedly cooked up a scheme to cover payments through an apparently not elaborate enough web of “consultants” with sub-contracts, dropped the ball in at least this instance.  Perhaps, to paraphrase Virgil “The Turk” Sollazzo, the Speaker was slipping in his choices of close associates.

Second, the story of Chicago and Illinois politicians using utilities, which are completely dependent on the good graces of the political class, as patronage havens and sources of, er, campaign cash is a story as old as Chicago and Illinois politics.  I incorporate this phenomenon extensively in the tales I weave in my book The Chairman and its sequel, The Chairman’s Challenge.  For  years, legions of people whose talents lie more in the political realm than in areas immediately pertinent to electricity and gas delivery and marketing,  along with legions of toadies, lackeys, coat-holders, and lickspittles, along with an occasional person of considerable competence have collected paychecks from utilities at the recommendation of their political sponsors.  

I first encountered this practice in 1975 when our long-time alderman in the 19^th Ward, Tom Fitzpatrick, who was known as “Silent Tommy Fitz” for saying nothing on the City Council floor but always voting the right way, decided to step down after 18 years as alderman.   He had anointed his Ward Secretary, Tom Ryan, as his successor.   Being 18 and interested in politics, I went to several campaign events put on by Ryan and his challenger, a young Jeremiah Joyce.   Ryan mentioned that he worked for “the gas company.”    Being young and naïve, I wondered why a guy who had a good job with the gas company would have the time and inclination to work in ward politics.   When I asked my dad about this, he just gave me the look that was the non-verbal equivalent of “C’mon, kid, you’re 18 years old, supposedly a smart kid, and you’ve lived in this ward your whole life; can’t you put two and two together?”   Instantly, I did.   Incidentally, Mr. Joyce defeated Mr. Ryan, with the help of the second vote in yours truly’s life, in a stunning upset, and the rest is history.

So there is nothing new to the nature of this crime on the part of, at this juncture, Commonwealth Edison.

Third, at the expense of sounding cynical (Who, me?   But I digress.), if Mike Madigan is involved here, he works cheap.  In the deferred prosecution agreement, Commonwealth Edison confessed to funneling $1.3 million to, as the Chicago Sun-Times puts it “associates of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan” from 2011 to 2019.   $1.3 million!?   Over nine years (if inclusive)?  That’s a lot of money to yours truly, and maybe to you.   However, despite what looks like a dedicated effort on the part of Exelon, Commonwealth Edison’s parent company, to obscure this information, its 2020 proxy statement seems to indicate that current Exelon CEO Christopher Crane was paid $14.2 million in 2019 and that Anne Pramaggiore, the immense talent who served as CEO of Exelon Utilities before, er, resigning after getting involved in this whole affair, was paid $3.9 in 2019 million despite leaving in October of that year.    If Mike Madigan was involved, he should have had a member of his crack staff check out the federal filings of Exelon and see what kind of money the utility was throwing at apparently lesser talents.

At $1.3 million, the money Commonwealth Edison allegedly paid to, as Hyman Roth would have put it, “make sure things go smoothly in (Springfield)” was an outright bargain for Commonwealth Edison.   Come to think of it, the $200 million fine the utility faces pales in comparison to the rate hikes that were shepherded through the legislature by Mr. Madigan regardless of his motivation.   $200 million is cheap even if, as Commonwealth Edison promises, it does not pass that charge along to Mr. and Mrs. Rate Payer.

It looks like Mike Madigan, who has served as Illinois House Speaker for 37 years, may have finally met his Waterloo.    While this is far from definitive, this unfolding story surely should be interesting.

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.