Former longtime Illinois Speaker of the House Michael Madigan today was found guilty by a jury on 10 out of 23 charges, including conspiracy, bribery and other charges in relation to a jobs-for-votes scheme and additional abuses of public office.
Many of the charges were at the centerpiece of the recent “ComEd Four” trial, in which all four defendants were convicted. The Madigan jury also found him guilty on multiple counts relating to the former speaker’s efforts to find former alderperson Danny Solis state board appointments in exchange for Solis’s driving tax appeal business to Madigan’s law firm.
The jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on six charges, including the overarching racketeering charge that described Madigan’s political operation as a criminal enterprise, faced by both Madigan and longtime ally Michael McClain.
Madigan was found not guilty on separate charges related to a West Loop apartment development.
McClain was previously convicted in 2023 along with three other former ComEd executives and associates on charges including bribery, conspiracy, and falsification of records.
“Today’s jury delivered justice to Michael Madigan, convicting him for multiple schemes of public corruption,” said David Greising, president of the Better Government Association. “Now it is time for the state legislature to take note and act boldly where they so far have been timid: Preventing future corruption by enacting ethics reforms that are long overdue.”
The legislature has not passed a major ethics bill in more than four years since a wide-ranging corruption investigation first referenced Madigan as “Public Official A” in a 2020 indictment of four Commonwealth Edison executives and associates.
A watered-down ethics bill passed in 2021 was so weak that the then-Inspector General for the state legislature resigned, stating her role would be a “paper tiger” and saying lawmakers had “demonstrated true ethics reform is not a priority.”
The BGA advocates for ethics reform to ensure good government and combat Madigan-style corruption. The BGA’s 2025 policy agenda calls for an end to influence peddling, including disclosure by lobbyists of their compensation by client, detailed economic disclosure from elected officials, and strict recusal and conflict-of-interest disclosure requirements on the statehouse floor. Term limits for leadership positions in the legislature and an extended “cooling off period” to prevent legislators from turning around and lobbying their former colleagues the moment they leave office also are part of the BGA Policy agenda.
Madigan’s conviction puts a capstone on years of swirling public corruption allegations and detailed reporting. In 2019, the Better Government Association newsroom (now the Illinois Answers Project), jointly with WBEZ, broke the news of official federal investigations into Madigan’s operations. Later that year BGA reported on further subpoenas in the investigation and Madigan ally and former ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain’s payments from ComEd for “legal services” years after announcing his retirement and when he was no longer authorized to practice law in Illinois.
Other scandals have swirled around Madigan for decades. Even before any federal investigations into Madigan’s operations were publicly confirmed, the BGA’s Illinois Answers Project newsroom reported campaign contribution and lobbying ties between Madigan and former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, utility company donations to Madigan during and following a proposed rate hike (multiple times), and the host of Madigan’s petition circulators and other political footsoldiers who found their way into clouted patronage jobs and contracts, among other stories.
The Better Government Association is a 101-year-old civic watchdog that seeks better government through investigative journalism, policy reforms and civic engagement efforts that lead to more open, equitable and accountable government. The policy team and investigative unit operate independently of one another, while both seek to advance the cause of better government in Chicago and across Illinois.
