Episode #191 of Hitting Left
Episode #191 of Hitting Left
The rise and fall of Mike Madigan
In case you missed Friday’s Hitting Left show with my guest, Chicago Tribune investigative reporter Ray Long, you can catch it here.
Ray is the author of “The House that Madigan Built: The Record Run of Illinois’ Velvet Hammer,” (March 2022). He’s a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who covers the state Capitol, City Hall, courts, and county beats. He’s also covered two governors who went to prison and a state senator who went to the White House.
He writes: Madigan once took a political potshot at a rising Democratic star named Barack Obama by deriding him as “The Messiah.”
I start off by asking Ray if he’d care to make a prediction as to who will be the next Chicago or Illinois politician going to prison. Mike Madigan and Eddie Burke come to mind. If you were a betting man, who would your money be on?
Ray’s Tribune piece co-written with Jason Meisner broke the story about candidate for mayor, Rep. Chuy Garcia being named as the unidentified member of Congress referenced in federal court filings detailing an alleged scheme by Madigan to appoint one of García’s political associates to a lucrative position on Commonwealth Edison’s board of directors.
Ray also broke the story about Alaina Hampton, the staffer who blew the whistle on sexual harassment inside Madigan’s campaign.
One of my favorite lines from Ray’s book is his description of the rocky, but important relationship between Chicago’s newly-elected mayor in 2019, Lori Lightfoot, and then, House Speaker Madigan.
She gave a carefully worded comment to reporters eager to hear what went down between the incoming Democratic mayor — the Black, openly gay, progressive, former federal prosecutor — and the all-powerful speaker — a straight, white Democrat schooled in Irish, ward-style politics a half-century earlier by Mayor Richard J. Daley, the party boss who perfected the Chicago machine. “The speaker occupies an important space in state government,” Lightfoot said. “We’re not going to be aligned on every issue, but he’s an important person to the city of Chicago.”
Hitting Left Music
Wall Street’s Mantra? — We opened the show with Money (That's What I Want) in honor of Motown star Barrett Strong who died this week.
Which reminds me…