SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The stunning downward spiral of Michael Madigan’s political career ended Friday with a 7 1/2-year prison sentence and a $2.5 million fine for the former Illinois House speaker and the longest-serving legislative leader in U.S. history after he was convicted of trading legislation for the enrichment of his friends and allies.
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey sentenced the 83-year-old in U.S. District Court in Chicago.
Nicknamed the “Velvet Hammer” for his quiet but hard-nosed style, Madigan was convicted in February on 10 of 23 counts in a remarkable corruption trial that lasted four months. The case churned through 60 witnesses and mountains of documents, photographs and taped conversations.
Federal prosecutors sought a 12 1/2-year prison term. Madigan’s attorneys wanted five years’ probation, saying he is a good man who tried to do right by taxpayers and needs to be home to care for his ailing wife, Shirley, who submitted a videotaped statement to the court requesting her husband be able to come home.
But Blakey noted that federal sentencing guidelines allowed for a term of 105 years based on findings in evidence — notably that Madigan committed perjury when he took the stand in his own defense. Blakey was particularly piqued over what he called “a nauseating display of perjury and evasion.”
Here is the flaw in your logic: If you encourage corrupt people to run for office you can’t guarantee that the people who run will actually care about their constituent’s concerns. Allowing corruption just leads to more corruption and everyone gets hurt in the process.
Oh no, I don’t want to encourage corrupt people to run for office. I just want the current officials to stop being pushovers and shove through the necessary litigation and other scripts necessary for change to happen. Democrats are sooooo fucking terrible when it comes to wanting to follow the rules that they will sabotage themselves before doing anything remotely heinous.
It’s time to stop trying to play bipartisan. As we are seeing very few Republicans want to cross the line for very few issues. What remains are the actual evil Maga Republicans and the rest who are too cowardly to do the right thing, even when you can see they want to do something. This leaves the Dems who now have a decision to make:
Continue playing for friends and pray it works, relying completely on normal opposition to become allies.
Play hard by holding these people in contempt and shutting them down at every opportunity and having individuals removed from offices that Trump cannot legally either vacate or place anyone in.
Actually band together under a single, strong, well-spoken leader that the people want. For this we have a handful of choices.
What we CANNOT keep doing is playing a normal fucking game of Football while the other side plays street level Rugby with someone’s Uncle Jorge too deep in his fifth can to referee properly.