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 Alaina Hampton just wanted to be a Democratic political worker,
but a lieutenant to Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan wanted more from her.
Madigan, by his own admission, did too little to stop him.
Under a settlement agreement reached in November, Madigan’s campaign paid
Hampton $275,000 to settle her federal lawsuit, which claimed nothing was done
about the sexual harassment by her former boss. Of that sum, $200,000 goes to
her lawyers. Madigan paid his lawyers $600,000, which is almost exactly what
he’s taken into his political fund from unions and businesses since the end of
September. Leading the way in those contributions was the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees, which contributed more than $71,000 to
Friends of Michael J. Madigan, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Madigan received a little more than $1 million in the quarter before that.
Hampton received more than 70 suggestive text messages in less than five months
from Madigan’s former state and political aide Kevin Quinn, remarking that she
was “smoking hot” in a bikini, that he couldn’t stop thinking about her and
repeatedly asking if the two might date if he weren’t older and her boss.
Hampton repeatedly rebuffed Quinn’s unwanted advances.
The harassment scandal and Hampton’s lawsuit in total cost the speaker $875,000.
The ultimate cost to Madigan remains to be seen as federal investigators probe
more than $30,000 in payments that a former Madigan confidant funneled through
ComEd lobbyists to Quinn after he was fired.
After more harassment allegations came out involving other Madigan staff, the
speaker promised to do better in a Tribune op-ed published in September 2018.
That was the same month ComEd made those payments to Quinn.
Months before quitting the Democratic organization, Hampton told Quinn’s
brother, Ald. Marty Quinn of Chicago’s 13th Ward, about the 70 text messages in
February 2017. Madigan has long been a Democratic committeeman in Marty Quinn’s
ward.
Nothing happened.
In November 2017, she wrote Madigan about the harassment. Again, nothing
happened.
So in February 2018, she went to the Chicago Tribune with her story and copies
of the text messages. Madigan fired Kevin Quinn hours later.More women came
forward about sexual harassment on Madigan’s watch, forcing his chief of staff,
Tim Mapes, to quit his $208,000-a-year job. Madigan cut ties to two other
staffers accused of harassment last year.
The allegations swirling around Madigan in 2018 led numerous pundits to
speculate that the #MeToo movement might halt the career of the man who is the
nation’s longest-serving and most-powerful House speaker. He’s been speaker for
all but two years since 1983.
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Hampton told the Sun-Times on Dec. 3 that she was
satisfied with the settlement and that she’s glad it’s over.
“I’m not a money person, and no amount of money is going to give me
those three years of my life back,” she said.
But Madigan’s trials appear far from over.
While it may not be #MeToo alone that takes down the speaker,
corruption connected to the sexual harassment could be a significant
part of it. Federal agents have raided homes and offices of six
people with ties to Madigan, including the home of Kevin Quinn. An
FBI informant was wearing a wire during a conversation at Madigan’s
law office.
Illinois’ culture of corruption costs the state at least $550
million a year in lost economic opportunity, and that’s just the
illegal acts. Legal corruption, including cronyism, costs the state
much more and is part of the reason Illinois ranks as second-most
corrupt state in the nation.
The Illinois Policy Institute supports the following anti-corruption
reform measures, many of which were recommended in a 2009 state
report released following the indictment of former Gov. Rod
Blagojevich:
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Adopting revolving door restrictions on state
lawmakers becoming lobbyists.
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Empowering the Illinois legislative inspector
general to investigate lawmaker corruption. As is, this muzzled
watchdog office must seek approval from a panel of state
lawmakers before opening investigations, issuing subpoenas and
even publishing summary reports.
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Mandating state lawmakers recuse themselves
from votes in which they have a conflict of interest. There is
no current state law or even parliamentary rule requiring
Illinois lawmakers to disclose a conflict of interest or to
excuse themselves from voting on issues where they have personal
or private financial interests.
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Reforming the Illinois House rules, which grant
more concentrated power to the House speaker than any other
legislative rules in the country.
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Using objective scoring criteria for capital
projects, akin to Virginia’s Smart Scale model. This ensures
infrastructure dollars are directed by need rather than clout.
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Passing a bipartisan constitutional amendment
to end politically drawn legislative maps in Illinois.
Illinois is in a corruption crisis that promises to
take down more elected leaders. State lawmakers can take action to
clean up the mess, or they can wait for the FBI to do it for them.
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