Dupage Policy Journal

With controversy swirling all around Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago), congressional candidate and former state representative Jeanne Ives (R-Wheaton) suspects the state's Democratic Party Chairman may be looking to his allies for help.

“Over $1 million in political donations to Mike Madigan in one week,” Ives recently posted on Facebook. “He is calling in favors to cover his legal bills.”

Ives suggests that there is no great mystery why nearly half of those funds would be coming from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago)

“Why? Bipartisan legislation was filed to repeal the Exelon bailout bill passed in 2016,” she wrote in her post. “Madigan can stop that. ComEd suffers if the bill is repealed and then electrical work for IBEW stalls significantly.”

Several media outlets have reported that federal investigators are asking more questions about Madigan as they ratchet up a series of probes that have thus far led to at least two longtime state lawmakers being forced to resign. According to the Chicago Tribune, as many as four different individuals have confirmed they were directly asked about Madigan's involvement in lobbying at Commonwealth Edison, employment contracts and other perks being doled out to associates of the longtime lawmaker.

In addition, WBEZ previously reported that Madigan's named appeared in a federal subpoena that was served on City Club, a prominent Chicago public affairs organization with longstanding political hiring and contracting ties with ComEd. As part of a coordinated action, federal agents also executed a search warrant on ComEd’s downtown Michigan Avenue office, with Madigan’s name reportedly being among the 20 or so that were listed in the document.

Sources told WBEZ that the raid stemmed from allegations that ComEd has long been in the business of hiring politically connected individuals in consulting jobs where they are required to do very little in exchange for favorable government actions such as rate increases. Around the same time that the City Club subpoena was delivered, federal agents targeted the home of longtime Madigan political associate Michael Zalewski as one of several raids conducted.

Ives, who is now running for the U.S. House in the 6th Congressional District, recently issued a statement to remind everyone of what she’s suspected for some time.

“Remember the Exelon bailout bill that gave them a $2.4 billion subsidy in 2016?” Ives' statement queried. “The lobbyists were thick as thieves in Springfield trying to pass it. [Then-Illinois Gov. Bruce] Rauner signed it. Republican leaders pushed it, and all the weak-kneed legislators fell in with the program. This was the bipartisan combine at work in Illinois. And now we have the Feds snooping around. I bet it is related to the passage of that bill.”