Madigan Flailing, Maybe Finished?

He has a vast and well oiled political machine, but can it survive this allegation?

• A powerful former Springfield lobbyist and close friend of House Speaker Michael Madigan once sought leniency for a state worker in a disciplinary case by arguing that the worker “kept his mouth shut” about an unspecified rape downstate.
  
  In the previously undisclosed, 2012 email, ex-lobbyist Michael McClain urged two top aides to then-Gov. Pat Quinn to avoid firing the worker, also telling them the man was politically “loyal” to Quinn and stayed silent about “ghost workers.”
  
  McClain and a former client, Commonwealth Edison, already are facing intense scrutiny from federal agents investigating the state-regulated power company’s efforts to win rate increases and other favorable actions from Springfield.
  
  The disclosure of the 2012 email -- which WBEZ obtained recently through an open-records request -- immediately prompted calls for an investigation from Gov. JB Pritzker and the top Republican in the Illinois House, who called the email’s contents “horrific.”

Madigan has run a quasi-criminal enterprise for years, decades even. He co-opted the opposition, the media and the investigators, and his precinct captains and ward-heelers kept everyone in line with jobs, contracts, and promotions.

But an allegation like this? Along with the FBI squeezing everyone they can from ComEd and connected lobbying firms? We might actually see Blago getting a bunch of company in prison shortly. And the chance of voter disgust spilling over into the November elections is a real possibility.