Dupage Policy Journal

In the wake of former House Speaker Michael Madigan pleading not guilty to federal racketeering and bribery charges on Nov. 1, Rep. Jim Durkin (R-Burr Ridge) is calling for changes in Springfield.

“Today's plea of not guilty by former speaker Mike Madigan in the federal court in Chicago to the superseding indictment with ComEd and the AT&T scandal should be a stark reminder of what the Democrat Party of Illinois has done to Illinois," Durkin said. "If you played by the Madigan rules, big corporations or the little guy, you had to pay to play. If not you lost in that arena."

Durkin said Madigan's Democratic colleagues did nothing to reign in the former speaker. 

"What's really fascinating is that the entire House Democratic Caucus, during that time, two years ago, chose to bury their heads in the sand and worse, block any attempt to seek the truth in the Illinois House," Durkin said, "In 2020 I called for and filed for the seating of a special investigation committee to investigate Madigan following Commonwealth Edison’s admission of bribing him over an eight-year period for legislative favors. I did this under Mike Madigan’s House rules. The committee was formed and only one witness testified — Chris Welch, who is now speaker. He denied our request to compel Madigan and Mike McClain to appear before the court."

Durkin is pushing legislative ethics reform.

"It comes to when is enough enough? Haven't we seen enough over the past few years? It's one Democrat House member after another that has been indicted and has either plead guilty, (is) serving their time or waiting to go to trial for some type of scandal for what they committed and what they did as sitting members of the House of Representatives. I will just say that it's time to go back and revisit that terrible ethics reform bill that was a sham that was introduced and was passed last year and let's get to the simple issue. Let's get legislators out of the business of lobbying.”

Recently, AT&T agreed to pay $23 million in fines for its part in the Madigan scandal.

Madigan was indicted on 22 counts in March, including bribery and racketeering. Michael McClain was named as a co-defendant in the criminal activities.