Illinois corruption and Tuesday’s primary election: Why won’t establishment Democrats suffer consequences?
Even in cynical Chicago and Illinois, the hypocrisy this election cycle has been stunning
Voters across Illinois will head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in federal, state and local races. A few months ago, Democrats might have been nervous. Federal corruption investigations had delivered methodical blows to a government on the take — a government of one-party rule. Would voters rebel? Stay home? Vote for independent candidates?
Federal investigations continue to unmask insider deals. The March 5 indictment of William Helm, once a high-ranking Chicago Department of Aviation and transportation official, alleges yet another pay-to-play scheme that robbed taxpayers of honest services. Helm pleaded not guilty to charges he bribed former Sen. Martin Sandoval, D-Chicago, to win a state construction contract for a client.
Dozens of other officials and insiders, along with their companies and associates, have been tainted by a wide-ranging federal probe first exposed during November 2018 raids at the offices of Ald. Edward Burke, 14th.
Yet the Democratic Party — its top leader, House Speaker Michael Madigan, and the Democrats he supports — thus far has suffered no tangible consequences from corruption and sexual harassment scandals involving many Democratic officials and loyalists. A top Madigan aide stood accused of sexual harassment and
got rescued, secretly, with under-the-table contract work and payments from Madigan’s allies. Several of Madigan’s closest confidants had their homes raided by the FBI. ComEd, the state’s largest and most influential utility provider, saw favorable legislation move through the General Assembly with Madigan’s closest adviser representing the company.
A red-light camera company and its associates, several of them former or current Democratic officials, has come under federal scrutiny, along with state transportation officials, a waste materials company, an insurance firm, a former union official and gaming interests. Yet the party in charge is poised to steamroll through Tuesday with little consequence. Illinois Democrats, including Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have condemned the sins, but they’ve not demanded that Madigan resign as speaker or party leader.
Donations to Friends of Michael Madigan, one of the speaker’s campaign committees, continue to roll in, including a Feb. 25 envelope bonanza of more than $125,000 from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, $100,000 from Illinois Federation of Teachers, $225,000 from Illinois Pipe Trades, $50,000 from the Ironworkers, $225,000 from the Pipefitters Association, $400,000 from a Marylandbased pipefitters and plumbing PAC — we’ll stop there. You get the idea.
Special interest groups don’t care about scandals. They care about power. Madigan still has it, bestowed upon him by look-the-other-way Democrats. That money is now flowing to candidates in House races who are vowing to clean up Springfield. Pretty laughable.
Come November, it’s possible Democrats in the House and Senate could actually increase their supermajorities with zero scars to show for myriad heavy-hitting scandals. Are Democratic voters numb to corruption allegations? Or not breathing? We’re not sure.
Compare the apathy now with the frustration less than a year ago when Chicago voters swept Mayor Lori Lightfoot into office on a wave of ethics reform. She won because she was an outsider, she was independent and even in Chicago, voters were fed up with greased-up insider deals that undercut taxpayers. That outrage has abruptly dissipated.
And the Illinois Republican Party, what’s left of it, has neither capitalized upon the Democrats’ embarrassment nor tried to. Aside from a few finger-wagging news releases, the GOP has done very little to hold Madigan accountable. The GOP doesn’t need gobs of money or resources to focus attention, every day, on the failures of Democrats to take meaningful steps to clean up corruption. Talk is, actually, cheap.
But both parties in Illinois have set a low bar for expectations of their own party leaders, even as they rail upon the opposite party nationally. Even in cynical Chicago and Illinois, the hypocrisy this election cycle has been stunning.