The mysterious disappearance of Michael Madigan’s meticulous judgment
The Michael Madigan we thought we knew would never have screwed up the way he’s screwed up in recent days.
On Feb. 18, he resigned the seat in the Illinois House of Representatives that he’d held for 50 years. It was a little more than a month after he lost his bid to be reelected speaker. A week ago Sunday he used his heavily weighted vote to install as his replacement Edward Guerra Kodatt, 26, a constituent-services worker in a Southwest Side aldermanic office.
Kodatt, who was swiftly sworn in, did not appear ready for prime time, offering vague nonanswers to reporters’ questions about his views and positions. He even refused to engage the question of who his favorite governor was, whiffing at that softball with a wan, “to be honest with you, I don’t have one.”
Madigan, a Democrat, didn’t even really bother to sing Kodatt’s praises, saying “I think (he) will stand on his own merits. He has spoken to his background. He spoke to his aspirations for service in the General Assembly, and I’m sure he’ll be judged on his actions.”
While the decision appeared unnecessarily hasty — the House has an overwhelming Democratic majority so there’s no urgency to fill the seat — most observers assumed that Madigan had gamed out the scenario for at least the month since he’d lost the speakership, if not longer.
By reputation he’s a cool, calculating politician often referred to as “famously cautious.” Measured. Steely. Calculating. A man who played legislative chess, as the joke went, while his opponents played Hungry Hungry Hippos.
It was a fair assumption that Kodatt had been thoroughly vetted, every aspect of his personal and professional life down to social media posts scoured for any hint of impropriety or scandal. If he’d so much as been punished for eating paste in preschool, Madigan’s minions surely would have known about it before sending him to Springfield.
But no. Tuesday night came a statement from Madigan and Kodatt’s former employer, Ald. Marty Quinn, 13th, that they were seeking Kodatt’s resignation because of “allegations of questionable conduct” that have not been specified.
He complied, and with equal haste
Madigan OK’d the appointment of another successor, Angie Guerrero-Cuellar, described in news reports as “a community services worker involved in COVID-19 education, contact tracing and safety outreach.”
I’m less intrigued by what exactly the “questionable conduct” was in the past of a young man who was a public figure for a couple of days than I am by the evident sloppiness of the former alleged Great and Mighty Oz of the General Assembly. Appointing an unknown to state office without performing due diligence showed a lack of care and judgment that was portentously off brand.
I’ve long believed that the Madigan I’ve known by following his career for decades in the media is too meticulous, detailoriented and wise ever to have committed an act or spoken words that would result in a criminal indictment. He’s a central figure in an ongoing federal probe of Commonwealth Edison’s long-running attempts to bribe him, but he denies any wrongdoing and has not been charged.
The Madigan we’ve seen in recent days, however, appears surprisingly “questionable” himself.
Foxx wisely pardons herself from parole fights
In a letter sent Wednesday to the chairman of the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx announced that her office will no longer take sides or participate in parole hearings before that board.
Smart move.
Periodically, the state’s attorney’s office has made news when offering an opinion about the merits of an petition for parole on an old case — nearly always to object. And it’s always seemed a little peculiar.
The original prosecutors are long gone, and all the relevant information they have is in the trial record. The office’s job ended when the sentence was finalized decades earlier.
Foxx wrote to the parole board chair Craig Findley that her deputies “are not best suited to make determinations about an incarcerated person’s rehabilitation and propensity to successfully reintegrate into free society. We are experts in facts and circumstances, criminal law and sentencing. We seek justice based on the current actions that brought a person to court.”
She added “We do not have the ability to fully predict the future — to know whether and how well incarceration will aid a person’s rehabilitation, to know if and when that person will be able to return to a nonpenal world without posing a continued threat to public safety. The end of our role in parole proceedings reflects this acknowledgment.”
Addressing the board directly, Foxx wrote, “You have at your disposal a wealth of information that allows you to take a holistic approach to parole consideration, including conducting interviews with the candidate, utilizing risk assessment tools, reviewing psychological exams and medical documents, considering parole plans, and scouring through comprehensive master files. … The participation of my assistant state’s attorneys often involves merely rehashing the facts of a case that is well-documented and has been routinely discussed for decades, such that our participation is of limited value.”
Now, yes, there is a way in which this decision can be seen as a punt, a recusal that allows her office to skate around the sort of controversy that has attended her decisions to intercede in some cases but not others. But it can also be seen as her giving up an opportunity for political grandstanding.
Foxx should be punting the ball to the Prisoner Review Board, which has not only the resources but the responsibility to make these often difficult calls.
Her time and energies are better spent addressing today’s trials.
Re: Tweets
The winner of this week’s reader poll to select the funniest tweet was “COVID-19 has turned us into dogs. We roam the house constantly looking for food. We’re told ‘no’ if we get too close to strangers. And we get really excited about going for a walk,” by @The_Duche55.
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