Attention call for ‘honest and transparent government’

Springfield, Ill. (KWQC) – Illinois legislators expressed a wide range of reactions on Wednesday after the conviction of the former president of the House of Representatives, Michael Madigan, for multiple federal positions of corruption.

The Republicans, who for a long time have complained about their leadership style, amplified their call to a broader ethical reform in the Capitol, while the Democrats tried to leave behind the era of Madigan and change their focus to the future.

“We all knew that this day was approaching,” said the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Tony McCombie, Republican from Savanna, at a virtual press conference.

Madigan, the oldest legislative leader in the history of the United States, was convicted of bribery and conspiracy. The majority of the positions for which they were condemned related to him allegedly looking for favors, such as contracts without work for his allies, of the officials of the Commonwealth Edison of the Commonwealth of public services in exchange for his support for favorable legislation. After being convicted of 10 charges, Madigan was declared innocent of another seven, while the jury was blocked in the remaining six charges shared by him and his coacked, former lobbyist Mike McClain.

Sometimes it was known that Madigan was a thorn on the sides of the governors of Illinois. Former republican governor Bruce Rauner once reclaimed “I’m not in charge,” when I talk about Madigan. But Madigan was not a great barrier to Governor JB Pritzker, who only served two years with the former talk now.

The president of the House of Representatives, Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, amounted to accommodation in January 2021 after Madigan lost the support of enough Chamber Democrats to condemn his re-election offer. According to him GrandstandMadigan called Welch after it was clear that he lost support to ask if he would like to become a speaker.

Welch had protected Madigan in the previous year after the Republicans tried to expel him from the position for “carrying out improper of a legislator” through a special investigation committee of the Chamber.

The Republican Party of the Chamber launched that effort after Comed was accused of delivering favors to Madigan allies in an attempt to obtain Madigan support in the legislation. But Welch, who was appointed by Madigan’s majority leader to preside over the committee, voted with two democrat companions for Close the investigationcalling him a “simulated exhibition judgment.” Republicans accused him of protecting Madigan from discipline more than a year before being accused of crimes related to his relationship with Comed.

“I have always believed that a court of justice was the place for this to be solved,” Welch said in a statement. “Today’s result leaves me with great appreciation and respect for our legal system. Researchers, prosecutors and a jury of Ilinoiss did their job. ”

Welch, who began his third mandate as a speaker in January, said the Chamber Democrats are now “focused on delivering for workers.”

Representative Ryan Spain, R-Peoria, who helped initiate the committee to investigate Madigan, criticized Welch’s leadership of the committee at a press conference on Wednesday.

The Democrats Change Approach

Madigan was also the president of the Illinois Democratic Party. As president of the party, he was able to direct campaign contributions to help Democrats win their careers and increase most of Illinois’s house, a majority that has remained intact since the mid -1990s.

The president of the Illinois Democratic Party, Lisa Hernández, said in a statement that “the approach has been to build a more transparent part, responsible and centered on the people” since she assumed the position in 2022 after the American representative Robin Kelly It happens to Madigan in 2021.

“Public service is a responsibility, not a privilege, and those who break public confidence must be responsible, regardless of who they are,” said Hernández.

The leaders of the Republican party said that the Democrats are not acquitted of their ties with their former president of the party, since many can prove their electoral victories to Madigan.

“They do not make mistakes: almost all Democrats in Illinois have benefited from Madigan’s corruption in some way, and everyone has been willing to sell their souls for strong donations and the support of the political machine that Madigan built,” said the president of the Illinois Republican Party, Kathy Salvi in ​​a statement.

Representative Kelly Cassidy, D-Chicago, had been frank in recent years of Madigan’s possession about the management of sexual harassment problems in the Illinois Democratic Party and bullying in the Chamber. His name appeared early in the trial when the prosecutors dug into the internal functioning of the house and the circle of Madigan.

“That there will be some measure of responsibility for the decades of abuse of power and corruption is of vital importance and will have implications for our state government for generations,” Cassidy said in a statement. “Particularly at a time when our federal government has been subsumed by blatantly corrupt forces, we need our state government to be reliable for the public and focus on the will of the people, not on their own interest.”

Cassidy was one of the 19 Democrats of the House of Representatives who put the last nail in the coffin of Madigan’s lodging in 2021 by opposing his re -election as a speaker, which finally forced him to withdraw from the race and, shortly after, give up To the house. The group opposed the handling of MADIGAN harassment accusations and shared concerns about a possibly corrupt relationship between Madigan and Comed.

Representative Ann Williams, D-Chicago, briefly challenged Madigan for the In3 Trejes in 2021.

“It is clear that we have unequivocally moved away from the practices of the past, which put politics to people,” Williams said in a statement to Capitol News Illinois. “It’s time to leave this chapter behind, since we face incredibly difficult challenges as a state and nation.”

The president of the Senate, Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, said that “the verdict is an alerting reminder that our work has never ended.”

“The jury verdict closes a long and disturbing chapter in the history of Illinois,” Harmon said in a statement. “It is a marked reminder that corruption, abuse of power and manipulation of public policies for personal benefit can never be tolerated. We cannot be effective if people do not trust us. “

Republicans ask for reform

The Chamber Republicans said that Madigan’s legacy continues to live in the rules of the camera, which govern how the camera operates.

“The problem in the heart of the eaten scandal here and these sentences had to do with the ability of Mike Madigan’s ability to decide whether or not the Chamber would consider a bill to vote,” Spain said.

Republicans want changes in chamber rules to facilitate members to influence which bills receive votes.

They also argued that more ethical reform is needed, such as providing more power to the legislative inspector and promulgating more restrictions to make a legislator give up his position and immediately become a lobbyist.

“We cannot afford federal prosecutors to continue enforcing our weak ethics laws, regardless of what the speaker welch feels,” McCombie said.

Capitol News Illinois It is a non -support news service that distributes the coverage of the state government to hundreds of media throughout the State. It is mainly financed by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

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