Illinois State House District 41 issued the following announcement on July 30.
Calling Speaker of the House Mike Madigan’s breach of the public trust “despicable and irreparable,” State Representative Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville) on Thursday co-sponsored legislation that seeks to officially strip Madigan of the title he has held for 35 of the last 37 years.
HR 885, filed on Thursday afternoon, points to the deferred prosecution agreement entered into on July 17 between ComEd and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, and states that trust in the Speaker has been misplaced for many years. The resolution goes on to state that members of the House of Representatives have no confidence that Mike Madigan can continue in the role of Speaker and is removed from the position.
“The facts of the deferred prosecution agreement are agreed to by ComEd and are undisputed,” said Wehrli. “ComEd has admitted that they paid out $1.3 million to gain favor with Mike Madigan. The Speaker’s involvement is clear, and he has brought shame onto the position of Speaker of the House and onto the House of Representatives. If he refuses to resign the Speakership, lawmakers must take it upon themselves to remove him.”
The facts of the case show that between 2011-2019, ComEd arranged for jobs, contracts and payoffs to Madigan allies, some of whom did little or no work for their compensation. ComEd did these favors in order to please Madigan, who controls the movement, or non-movement, of bills in the Illinois House. In this case, Madigan pushed through two pieces of legislation that enriched ComEd on the backs of consumers. “ComEd benefitted to the tune of $150 million as a result of this pay-to-play scheme, and it appears that our Speaker of the House was a willing participant,” Wehrli said. “As the federal probe into corruption in Illinois continues, it’s clear now that Mike Madigan is at the epicenter of it. All House Republicans are co-sponsoring this bill, and every House Democrat who values fairness and is interested in rooting out corruption should co-sponsor it too.”
Original source can be found here.
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