Prairie State Wire

In the eyes of Republican state House candidate Peter Breen, seeing the latest former top ComEd executive be charged in the federal corruption probe that has also ensnared Mike Madigan almost serves as an indictment of the longtime House Speaker.

“The announcement that Fidel Marquez has been charged and is cooperating with federal authorities is really bad news for Madigan,” Breen told the Prairie State Wire. “Marquez was his personal guest at the latest inauguration of the General Assembly. He’s a key player within the Madigan Machine.”

Federal authorities recently moved to charge Marquez, who formerly served as vice president of governmental affairs, with bribery and conspiracy stemming from his alleged part in a pay-for-play scheme in which indictments say jobs, contracts and payments were steered to associates known to be close to Madigan in exchange for his support on certain legislation.

Earlier this summer, federal investigators also announced that the utility giant had been charged with a years-long bribery scheme where at least $1.3 million in perks were steered to Madigan associates. At the same time, Madigan’s office was served with a grand jury subpoena seeking more information about their dealings with such companies as at AT&T, Walgreens and Rush University Medical Center.

Running against incumbent state Rep. Terra Costa-Howard (D-Glen Ellyn) in the 48th District, Breen hopes it’s just the start of cleaning up Springfield.

“We don’t know yet if Marquez has personal knowledge of what Madigan was fully aware of, but I’m hopeful,” Breen added. “It’s the only way we’re going to have real ethics reform right now. Even today, Illinois House will not say what everyone knows to be true and that’s that Mike Madigan has done wrong.”

Breen said he fears a bipartisan special state House committee that was organized to look into some of Madigan’s conduct and determine if it warrants disciplinary action won’t have the full authority to make the kind of changes he feels are truly needed.

“The legislative committee is something that’s long overdue but the fact that it is being run by a Madigan loyalist and all the Democrats on the panel are fully sworn to him means that the committee is not going  to give we the people what we need, which is to have Madigan expelled from the House,” he said. “Republicans are doing everything they can within Madigan’s House rules to highlight this issue, but ultimately unless more Democrats will say what everyone knows to be true about him we are not going to get him out.”