Chicago – a city well known for its corruption – is getting an eye-opening lesson this month on just how deep that river of sleaze runs. We are talking about the criminal racketeering trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Madigan ran the Illinois House with an iron fist for more than 40 years(!), making him the longest serving state house speaker in the history of American politics. He is accused of scheming with utility giants ComEd and AT&T to get his cronies no-work contracts, and using his high office to drum up business for his law firm.

Testimony in the trial has been revealing. Former state Rep. Scott Drury testified that as a reformer, he frequently clashed with Madigan, who finally asked to meet with him. As their discussion ended, Madigan told him, “I can’t figure you out.”

“‘Most legislators want money or power,'” Drury recalled Madigan saying. “He says, ‘it doesn’t seem that you want that.’ I remember I just smiled back and said, ‘I want good government.’ And he just laughed.”  Drury recalled he never got a single bill passed while Madigan was Speaker.

Chicago columnist John Kass says that in 2019 and 2020 Madigan’s friends urged him to retire as he aged into his late 70s.  They’d tell him, “Mike, you’ve already made enough money. You had all that power. It’s time to go. And you know what he’d say? He’d say, ‘Yeah, but if I retire, what am I going to do?'”

What a statesman.

We’ve seldom seen a stronger case for term limits than the Madigan mess in Chicago.