With committee bickering, Madigan to face challenge
SPRINGFIELD — Republican members of a committee investigating influence-peddling at the state Capitol insisted Thursday that subpoenas be issued to reluctant witnesses they want to question, including House Speaker MichaelMadigan, the focus of the probe.
Reps. Tom Demmer of Dixon, Deanne Mazzochi of Elmhurst and Grant Wehrli ofNaperville said in a teleconference they had sent drafts to the committee’s Democratic chairman, Rep. Emanuel“Chris” Welch of Hillside.
During a hearing Tuesday in the review of Madigan’s role in a decadelong bribery scandal involving power company ComEd, Welch objected to the request, saying the action demanded deliberation and would probably be fruitless, given the likelihood of court challenges.
Mazzochi said Welch was willing to “preemptively surrender the investigative powers” of the panel.
“Why should this committee give up any tool or opportunity to get to the truth?” she asked.
The day was marked by what until recently would have been a stunning event: A member of Madigan’s caucus, Rep. Stephanie Kifowit, announced her quest to take the gavel from the longest-serving leader of a legislative body in U.S. history when the 78-year-old Madigan’s term expires in January.
The request for subpoenas came after informal invitations to witnesses, including Madigan, were rejected except for one to Exelon Corp. Exelon is the parent company of ComEd, which agreed to pay a $200 million fine after admitting to the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois that the company supplied nowork jobs and contracts to political allies of Madigan in exchange for favorable legislation for nearly a decade beginning in 2011.
Madigan, who is identified not by name but by title in the document, has not been charged and denies wrongdoing. But David Glockner, who joinedExelon as vice president in May, confirmed in testimony Tuesday each instance of favor-trading between ComEd and Madigan documented in the so- called deferred prosecution agreement.
Welch said in a statement Thursday that he received the draft subpoenas, which Republicans protest contain boilerplate language merely directing awitness to appear and the time and place. But Welch said decisions about whether the committee, previously convened only in 1905 and 2012, should issue subpoenas, who should get them and what they should seek “are extremely consequential decisions” setting legislative precedents.
“Republican members have shown that they are not interested in cooperation …” Welch said of the minority caucus, outnumbered in the House 74-44. “They are solely interested in headlines, half-truths, and distractions to prop up their dimming political prospects.”
Kifowit, an Oswego Democrat elected to the House in 2012, is aMarine Corps veteran who said in Chicago that she is compelled to challenge Madigan’s leadership based on her values of “honor, trust, integrity, dependability andservice above self.” The 48-year-old former financial planner and Aurora alderwoman was among a group of legislators, all women, who called for Madigan to resign in July just after release of the deferred prosecution agreement.