 Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan will soon become the longest-serving state
house speaker in modern U.S. history. His leadership has defined the Illinois
General Assembly for more than three decades.
He is also the most powerful state house speaker in the country. No other state
grants so much power to one legislative leader.
But according to Madigan, he’s not as powerful as everyone says he is. And he
shouldn’t be blamed for Illinois’ problems. Among them: massive out-migration,
the highest property taxes in the nation, the highest black unemployment rate in
the nation and the weakest manufacturing employment climate in the region.
On May 9, the Illinois House speaker sat for a friendly half-hour interview with
WGN Radio.
Here are the highlights:
Madigan describes his power as “alleged”
“Relative to my alleged power, [former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar] said even a weak
governor has more power than the speaker does, OK?” the speaker said in the
interview.
A comprehensive review of legislative rules in all 50 states show Madigan is the
most powerful house speaker in the nation. In the more than three decades
Madigan has served as the speaker, there is not a single piece of legislation
that has become law without his blessing.
He controls whether bills live or die. He controls the legislative map. And he
controls a property tax law firm that makes millions off his political
influence.
The appeal to former Gov. Jim Edgar is a weak attempt at masking Madigan’s
unprecedented and oppressive influence over Illinois’ legislative process. Not
to mention Edgar hasn’t always been so keen on downplaying the speaker’s
outsized power.
Madigan says he’s protecting the middle class
Throughout the interview, Madigan positioned himself as a savior of Illinois’
middle class.
He repeated talking points on proposed reforms to Illinois’ workers’
compensation system, prevailing wage laws and collective bargaining, saying
these would mean “lowering the wages of the middle class, lowering the standard
of living for the middle class, and driving injured workers to welfare and to
the emergency room.”
But Illinois’ experience during Madigan’s tenure reveals the truth about his
disregard for the state’s middle class. The speaker’s failed policy agenda for
the past three decades has brought pain for the many and perks for the few.
Consistently, Madigan confuses the middle class at large with state and local
government employees. The families who do not rely on the government for their
paychecks cannot keep up with rising property taxes, are seeing their neighbors
leave in droves, and are short on good blue-collar job opportunities.
Taking care of the middle class means giving it a chance to grow with economic
and governmental reforms that make all Illinoisans, not just those in the public
sector, more prosperous.
Notably, Madigan dismissed the idea of a property tax freeze throughout the WGN
interview, despite the fact that nearly 1 in 5 Illinois homeowners are deeply
underwater on their mortgages. That’s the second-highest percentage in the
nation.
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And take the workers’ compensation system, where Madigan equates
any reforms to an attack on working people. Today, that system is
putting worker health at risk by allowing the practice of physician
dispensing, where doctors can sell potentially dangerous drugs
directly out of their offices to injured workers at big markups.
But the workers’ compensation system does not change because Madigan
must deliver a return on investment. Trial lawyers and law firms are
two of the largest bankrollers of the Madigan machine.
Meanwhile, manufacturers that employ middle-class Illinoisans are
crushed under the weight of the highest workers’ compensation costs
in the Midwest. And Illinois goes unmentioned in countless talks of
expansion and investment in good manufacturing job opportunities.
Madigan says term limits are a bad idea
Surprise! A man who has been a state representative since 1971
doesn’t like term limits.
“I support term limits as administered by the voters,” he said in
the WGN interview.
The problem is that Madigan’s refusal to cede control over political
mapmaking means politicians pick their voters, not the other way
around.
Nearly 4 out of 5 Illinoisans support term limits, according to
polling from the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern
Illinois University, Carbondale.
And according to data from the National Conference of State
Legislatures, Illinois is one of only 14 states with no form of term
limits for state lawmakers and the following executive branch
offices: governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney
general, treasurer, auditor general and comptroller.
Calls to pass any form of term limits through the General Assembly,
until now, have fallen on deaf ears. State Rep. David McSweeney,
R-Barrington Hills, filed a constitutional amendment in 2015 to
place term limits on Illinois lawmakers.
It never left Madigan’s Rules Committee.
Members of the Illinois Senate Jan. 11 passed a resolution that
imposes term limits on leadership positions in their chamber.
But this resolution does not apply to the House, where Madigan was
elected to his 17th term as speaker on the same day the Senate took
action to put limits on leadership.
Madigan takes no blame for the state of the state
One wonders whether the plight of long-suffering Illinois families
has offered any lessons to Madigan. Maybe given the results over the
years, he would alter his policy priorities to adapt to the state of
the state.
That remains to be seen.
Not once in the 30-minute interview did Madigan acknowledge that he
has been a co-pilot on every major decision to come out of the
Statehouse for 32 of the last 34 years.
Until that reckoning, the speaker’s legacy will be defined not by
any brave choice to bring prosperity back to Illinois, but rather by
power, privilege and politics.
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