There is nothing quite like the arrival of a jury’s verdict. The court is hushed because no one knows what will come next.
The buildup to the jury verdict for former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan occurred over the course of 11 weeks of testimony, during which the inscrutable Madigan testified, and 11 days of deliberations. The lawyering on both sides was top-notch; helpful evidence abounded, showing guilt or maybe just scummy but legal behavior. No one who closely followed the trial could predict with certainty what the outcome would be.
And Madigan, who engineered a corrupt scheme, was justly found guilty of 10 counts of corruption. The jury reached no verdict on the key racketeering conspiracy charge. This is the way the system is supposed to work.
Compare that dignified and fair result to the galling atrocity surrounding another convicted criminal this week — former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, pardoned by President Donald Trump. The contrast between Madigan’s guilty verdicts and Blago’s pardon shows the difference between the rule of law and the tyranny of lawlessness.
Madigan is guilty. The 82-year-old felon may not do time. Appeals will follow, amid knowledge that the U.S. Supreme Court lately has shown lenience toward corrupt public officials, should Madigan’s appeals carry that far. But for now, at least, the gavel of justice has come down on Madigan, “the velvet hammer.”
Blago, on the other hand, has got his pardon. It took a president with disdain for the law and Democrat-led Illinois to pardon a former scofflaw governor. For years now, Blago has been calling himself a “political prisoner,” a term Trump later applied to the insurrectionists jailed for their violent attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn Trump’s election defeat.
Contempt for the law can be subtle but insidious, in the way Madigan practiced it. Or it can be clownish and ham-fisted, in the style of Trump and Blago. But contempt is contempt, and in whatever form, it is a corrosive, dangerous force. If left unchecked, it can destroy the very underpinnings of democracy.
Blago and Madigan had their stark differences. Blagojevich brazenly shook down people — the head of a children’s hospital, aspirants to Barack Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat — using his office for personal gain. Madigan was more systematic and subtle: reinventing political patronage in the form of no-work lobbyist positions at ComEd, for example, and corruptly using his office to benefit his law firm, which specializes in property tax appeals.
Whatever their stylistic contrasts, Madigan and Blagojevich both were products of a state government culture that tolerates lawlessness — and even sometimes nurtures it — through laws and practices that have proved impervious to reform. Four of the last 11 Illinois governors have seen prison, and dozens of other elected officials, too, the unsurprising progeny of a political culture that is a cradle of corruption.
Gov. JB Pritzker in a statement Wednesday said, “Public service ought to be a high calling for honest people with integrity. And those who violate the public’s trust must be held accountable if confidence in the system is to be restored.”
There are many honest and principled people in government. There also are crooks who will steal all they can: Madigan, Blago and the many others have shown that.
Pritzker’s statement has it right, as far as it goes. Yes, those who violate the public trust must be exposed and punished. But better yet would be a reformed system, one with safeguards in place that protect against the betrayals in the first place.
The Madigan case itself provides a passel of proposals that readily come to mind.
Laws in Illinois could prevent elected officials from engaging in outside business — such as real estate law — that creates direct conflicts with their public duties. Lobbyists should be required to disclose not just their clients but also how much they’re paid and what work they do. Legislative leadership positions could be subject to term limits, in order to prevent the accumulation of unrivaled power over time.
Details discovered by federal investigators have shown us the broad outlines of Madigan’s corruption for more than five years, since my organization, the Better Government Association, first reported that the speaker’s name turned up on an FBI subpoena for a search of a political crony’s home. As Madigan’s misdeeds first came into focus, Pritzker and other government officials decried the corruption and declared the need for reform.
But the reforms so far are weak tea. A ban against a revolving door from lawmaker to lobbyist is rendered ineffective by a loophole that keeps that door spinning. A supposedly strengthened legislative inspector general’s office was rendered so weak that the person in office at the time resigned her position rather than continue in toothless service. Lobbyist disclosures were strengthened, but not nearly enough.
The guilty verdict against Madigan is a victory for the rule of law, and Pritzker is right in calling for accountability as a step toward rebuilding trust in Illinois government. New safeguards against corruption would make those words — and the state’s commitment to clean up government — ring more true.
David Greising is president and CEO of the Better Government Association.
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