Issued the following announcement on Oct. 21.
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that federal investigators are seeking information about Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in a subpoena and search warrant served on the City Club of Chicago as part of a probe into ComEd’s lobbying practices, and as part of a larger investigation into public corruption in Illinois.
According to WBEZ,
Federal investigators are looking into allegations that Commonwealth Edison hired multiple politically connected employees and consultants in exchange for favorable government actions, including electricity rate increases…
ComEd’s PAC has given a total of $253,000 in campaign contributions to the Democratic Party of Illinois and the Friends of Michael J. Madigan political committee in the last 15 years, records show. Over the past 11 years, individuals listing ComEd or Exelon as their employers have reported contributing more than $85,000 to those same two Madigan-controlled campaign funds.
Jeanne Ives, a Republican reform candidate for Congress and former state legislator, issued the following statement in response,
“Remember the Exelon bailout bill that gave them a $2.4 billion subsidy in 2016? The lobbyists were thick as thieves in Springfield trying to pass it. Rauner signed it. Republican leaders pushed it, and all the weak-kneed legislators fell in with the program. This was the bi-partisan combine at work in Illinois.
“The deal was a disgusting 450 pages of pandering hand-outs. There was a lot of pressure to vote for that bill. Exelon had worked the bill for over a year and as the bill developed it became a jobs program for special interests, a hand-out for renewable energy companies, and I wouldn’t doubt, possibly led to pay-offs to the connected. This bill was a hot mess with the 10th amendment coming the morning of the final votes. I don’t shy away from standing up to the special interests and the big government politicians in either party. I spoke against it. I voted against it. I wrote an op-ed that NONE of the Chicago media picked up.
“And now we have the Feds snooping around. I bet it is related to the passage of that bill. ”
The Exelon bailout was one of the vignettes in an ad Ives’ ran in the 2018 primary decried by the establishment Republicans and Democrats alike along with Illinois political press corps types who do their bidding.
Ives defended the ad at the time, “It was an illustration of policies put in place by Governor Rauner--along with political ruling class Republicans and Democrats--policies that Illinois families, particularly the suburban families I represented, needed to understand.”
Ives lamented that it takes federal prosecutors to police politicians in both parties in Illinois because of their unwillingness to police themselves.
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