The shocking electric utility bribery scandal continues. In Illinois, federal prosecutors this week indicted a close associate of Michael Madigan, Democratic speaker of the state house of representatives. Illinois has been rocked by an admission by Exelon subsidiary Commonwealth Edison that it bribed Madigan with $1.3 million for no-show jobs and bogus contracts in exchange for $150 million in benefits to the Chicago utility.
At the time of the July charges, Madigan denied that he had taken any bribes. He said he has “never made a legislative decision with improper motives and has engaged in no wrongdoing here. Any claim to the contrary is unfounded.”
On Nov. 22, the feds indicted ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain, 73, a long-time Madigan associated and alleged bag man. With the headline “Feds draw near House Speaker Michael Madigan as key confidant weighs cooperation choice others have faced in Illinois corruption cases,” the Chicago Tribune reported that McClain “likely marks the clearest path for investigators if they were to get to Madigan, especially considering the speaker’s well-honed reputation for caution, from avoiding phone and email conversations to leaving much of the day-to-day business of politics to a trusted circle of advisers.”
Prosecutors charge that McClain was the key go-between among Madigan and ComEd interests. The Tribune wrote, “Among the evidence against McClain are recorded phone conversations and emails in which McClain allegedly refers to Madigan as ‘our Friend’ and warns his co-defendants — former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, lobbyist John Hooker, and consultant Jay Doherty — that it was in the utility’s best interest not to disappoint the speaker.”
Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker has been putting pressure on Madigan to resign as head of the chairman of the state’s Democratic Party and consider stepping down as house speaker. The Chicago Sun-Times reported on a Pritzker press conference, where the governor said, “Written statements and dodged investigatory hearings are not going to cut it. If the speaker cannot commit to that level of transparency, then the time has come for him to resign as speaker.”
Madigan, 78, has served in the Illinois house since 1971 and has been speaker for all but two years between 1983 and 2020. He represents a Chicago district. His step-daughter, Lisa Madigan, served as Illinois Attorney General from 2003 to 2019.
The Chicago bribery scandal is taking place along with a major Ohio utility scandal, where Akron-based electric utility FirstEnergy is charged with bribing the state legislature in order to pass House Bill 6, which bails out economically failing nuclear and coal-fired power plants, and then orchestrating high-priced opposition to a referendum to overturn the legislation. The referendum failed. That scandal has resulted in the defenestration of the Republican speaker of the Ohio house and the resignation of the head of the state’s utility regulator.
— Kennedy Maize