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 Illinois House Speaker’s Mike Madigan confidant and workhorse,
Mike McClain, tried to leverage a state employee’s silence about a rape and
ghost payrolling to save the worker’s job, according to an email obtained by
WBEZ reporters.
“He has kept his mouth shut on Jones’ ghost workers, the rape in Champaign and
other items. He is loyal to the Administration,” McClain wrote in the email July
31, 2012, about state employee Forrest Ashby.
Ashby left his state job in 2018 and went to work for Illinois Gov. J.B.
Pritzker’s campaign doing “faith-based outreach” as a $5,000-a-month consultant,
after being recommended by McClain. A Pritzker spokesperson told WBEZ the
administration sent McClain’s email to the “appropriate investigatory
authority,” but declined to identify the specific office.
 McClain is a former lobbyist and has been a close friend to Madigan since the
1970s when they started their political careers in the Illinois General
Assembly. Federal agents raided McClain’s Quincy, Illinois, home in May, and are
probing $10,000 in payments to a Madigan political lieutenant after he was fired
in 2018 for sexual harassment of a campaign worker, the Chicago Tribune
reported.
In the email McClain was writing to top aides of ex-Gov. Pat Quinn seeking
leniency for Ashby, who was an administrator for a state facility housing
sexually violent prisoners. While no response from the aides was included in the
radio reporters’ open records request, McClain wrote a follow-up email the next
day thanking them when Ashby’s disciplinary hearing was delayed: “Nothing
happens accidentally.”
Ashby and McClain are both from Quincy. McClain recommended Ashby for the job
connecting Pritzker’s campaign to the religious community, WBEZ reported. Ashby
is currently making $40 an hour as a consultant to the Illinois Law Enforcement
Training and Standards Board.
More than any other political figure, McClain has Madigan’s ear, often dining
and traveling with him. McClain’s ready access to the speaker made him a
powerful lobbyist, with clients including power company Commonwealth Edison.
“These are extremely serious and troubling allegations,” Madigan said in a Jan.
8 press release. “I had no knowledge of the incident referenced in the story and
only learned of this today. I encourage those with any information to come
forward.”
Details about the rape to which McClain referred have yet to emerge. The
reference to “Jones’ ghost employees” is unclear, but Ashby worked for former
Senate President Emil Jones’ wife.
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Whether the multiple federal investigations of
those close to Madigan ever reaches the speaker himself remains to
be seen, but Illinois lawmakers need to examine a political culture
that values a state job over justice for a rape victim.
Illinois is measurably the second-most corrupt state in the nation,
with four of the past eight governors landing in prison. Besides the
warped, morally bankrupt system created by insider dealing and
concentrated power, corruption costs the state economy at least $550
million a year.
Pritzker is right that this case must be investigated, but now is
the time for him to lead on corruption reforms and for state
lawmakers to embrace them. The Illinois Policy Institute supports
the following anti-corruption reforms, many from a 2009 state report
released after 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.
Spring cleaning includes taking furniture outside
so sunshine can sanitize, which is the idea behind “sunshine laws”
such as the one used to expose McClain’s offensive email. State
lawmakers should get an early start on spring cleaning at the
Statehouse – before FBI agents sweep it out for them.
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