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ILLINOIS HOUSE BILL WOULD JEOPARDIZE
MADIGAN’S $151K PENSION
Illinois Policy Institute
| Dylan Sharkey
A new bill in the Illinois House calls for suspending the pensions for
legislators facing corruption charges. Former House Speaker Michael
Madigan, recently indicted for racketeering and bribery, is set to
collect $12,600 per month starting in July.
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 This July, former Illinois House Speaker Michael
Madigan’s pension benefits will jump 78% to $12,600 per month, but a new House
bill is taking aim at it.
In the final days of the legislative session, House Bill 5737 was filed by state
Rep. Amy Elik, R-Fosterburg. It would suspend pension benefits for corrupt
lawmakers in the months or years before they are found guilty.
“Under current law, Madigan will collect a taxpayer-paid pension until a guilty
verdict is reached,” Elik said. “This means Madigan could go on to collect his
elected official pension for several years before it’s taken away.”
Current law also allows lawmakers convicted of corruption to run again for
office unless it’s an election fraud conviction. Politicians convicted of
bribery and racketeering could still legally run for office, but a similar bill
aims to change that.
“Corrupt lawmakers should not receive a taxpayer-funded pension if they
defrauded the taxpayers while serving themselves in state government,” Elik
said. “Suspending pension payments while awaiting the resolution of a case will
send a strong message to corrupt politicians that if you break the law, the
consequences will be costly.”
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Madigan is projected to collect more than $2.9 million but only contributed
$351,000 toward his public poension. It will take Madigan three years to collect
back 50 years of contributions to the General Assembly Retirement System as a
state representative, and from a pension system with so much debt that it
contains only 21% of what it eventually must pay out.
Thanks to a pension sweetener no longer allowed for lawmakers, Madigan’s pension
payments will jump by $66,000 annually on July 1 to $151,200 and then rise every
year unless he’s convicted in the corruption probe. Elik’s bill hasn’t been
assigned to a committee; lawmakers only have until April 8 before heading home.
Dylan Sharkey recently graduated from the University of Iowa with a bachelor’s
degree in political science. He’s a life-long resident of St. Charles, Illinois,
and is currently pursuing his master’s degree in public policy from Northwestern
University.
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