Ill. speaker, AG have stormy past with governor

[December 17, 2008]  CHICAGO (AP) -- Long before Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges, House Speaker Michael Madigan compared him to a tumor and suggested ways to impeach him.

Before that, the governor had called Madigan -- a fellow Democrat -- a "George Bush Republican" and sued him for instructing Democratic lawmakers to stay home when the governor ordered them to work.

The tortured relationship between the two is getting a public airing now that Madigan and his daughter, state Attorney General Lisa Madigan, have emerged as key players in determining the future of the embattled governor. The speaker has appointed a panel to consider impeachment, while his daughter has asked the state's highest court to remove Blagojevich from office, claiming he is unfit to serve.

Both have tried to sound measured in their public comments about the proceedings, but the distrust between the Madigans and the governor runs deep.

The relationship started to sour not long after Blagojevich finished taking the oath of office in 2003. After seemingly agreeing on a budget plan with Democratic lawmakers, he went home and vetoed big chunks of it.

"Speaker Madigan is someone who has operated in an atmosphere when a public official gives his word, it's kept," said Mike Lawrence, former director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. "One of the things that particularly annoyed him is he felt the governor was not good to his word."

The son of a Democratic precinct captain and ward superintendent on Chicago's southwest side, Madigan has been a member of the House since 1971 -- serving as speaker for 25 years save two years when Republicans took the majority.

After what happened with Blagojevich's first budget, Madigan and other lawmakers insisted that the governor sign "memorandums of understanding" with them to get his promises on paper.

Madigan, a slight man who shows little emotion in public, also has been offended by the bombastic, glad-handing Blagojevich's personal behavior. That was apparent at the 2004 funeral of state Sen. Vince Demuzio.

"Madigan told me ... Blagojevich was late, he kept the priest awaiting and then he didn't even go to the cemetery," said Charles Wheeler, head of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "He bopped in, held up the Mass, and you could just tell that to Madigan it was the protocol equivalent of mooning the congregation."

But Blagojevich hit one of Madigan's biggest nerves -- his sensitivity to suggestions that he got his daughter her job and calls the shots for her -- in 2004, after Lisa Madigan shut down Blagojevich's plan to mortgage the state's Chicago headquarters. She said the move was unconstitutional, but Blagojevich accused her of retaliating against him on her father's behalf.

"I don't want to get involved in a family deal here but, you know, it's her father," Blagojevich said. "I've got two daughters. I hope they back me on stuff that I do."

Lisa Madigan has long been considered a top contender for governor in 2010. A former state senator, she was elected the state's first female attorney general in 2002 and re-elected in 2006.

The mortgage issue is far from Lisa Madigan's only dustup with Blagojevich. She and other statewide officers met with the governor in 2003 to talk about their budgets and thought they had reached an agreement on cuts. Soon after, Blagojevich publicly doubled those cuts.

Lisa Madigan's office also investigated allegations of hiring fraud under Blagojevich but halted that investigation in 2006 at the behest of federal prosecutors. At the time, she released a letter from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald that said his probe had yielded credible witnesses related to "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud" -- adding to the governor's public woes.

The relationship between Michael Madigan and Blagojevich hit a low this summer when The Associated Press reported that Madigan was circulating a memo to legislative candidates instructing them on how to publicly call for hearings to impeach the governor.

"One thing we learned from the (imprisoned former Gov.) George Ryan case is that we should excise a tumor when it is first discovered; not leave it in the body to continue to spread and do further harm," the memo stated.

[Associated Press; By DON BABWIN]

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