Prairie State Wire

Through a map drawing, two former ComEd executives made sure House Speaker Michael Madigan was able to keep his grip on power, not to mention other recent money, jobs and internships Commonwealth Edison has been using to try to "bribe" Madigan, according to the executive director of coalition seeking political and government reform.

While Madigan does need millions of dollars for his campaigns, the way he voted on a fair map amendment was the key to his power, Change Illinois Director Madeleine Doubek wrote in a piece published by Crain's Chicago Business and on the Change Illinois website.

In 2016, former ComEd CEO Frank Clark and former top lobbyist John Hooker did everything they could to ensure Madigan kept power of the drawing the Illinois House of Representatives district map, Doubek wrote.

“It’s tough to get Illinoisans to fully appreciate how critical it is who draws the maps,”Doubek wrote. “It cannot be overstated just how much a majority leader’s power comes from being able to draw the districts. Think about this. Madigan has been in power for all but two of the past 40 years. What was different for those two? Republicans had the power over the maps. Those maps lasted for 10 years, and he lost power for only two, but still.”

When a group of citizens formed a group called Support Independent Maps in 2016, Clark and Hooker filed a lawsuit so that the group couldn’t put before voters whether or not an independent group should be drawing the lines for district maps instead of policymakers. 

The group had already gathered approximately 570,000 signatures on a petition to put a fair maps amendment on the ballot, which is when Clark and Hooker stepped in to stop the group, Doubek wrote.

Attorney Michael Kasper, who happened to be a longtime attorney for Madigan with strong ties, was hired to represent Clark and Hooker in the lawsuit. In 2016, Kasper was a ComEd lobbyist as well. 

Clark and Hooker also created the People’s Map effort and delivered political mailings that claimed an independent map group way trying to “erode the political power of people of color,” Doubek writes.

“The Chicago Tribune reported that Hooker, who is Black, said the effort to remove mapmaking from politicians ‘had unintended consequences for Black and Brown minority districts,’” Doubek wrote. “The mailings also outrageously suggested the nonpartisan group was a front for Republicans.”

Support Independent Maps hired Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who was then a partner at Mayer Brown law firm, to represent them in the case. Lightfoot suggested Madigan was behind the minority disenfranchisement claims, which Lightfoot dismissed as “nonsense,” WBEZ reported. 

But Clark and Hooker prevailed in the Illinois Supreme Court when Thomas Kilbride, with whom Madigan shares a connection, was the deciding vote. Despite the nearly 570,000 names on the petition, Kilbride voted to strike down the petition, Doubek wrote.

“Three months after the ruling, ComEd’s parent company, Exelon, won a major bailout for its nuclear plants from Illinois lawmakers,” Doubek wrote. “In response to the ComEd deferred prosecution agreement, Madigan has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged, despite being implicated as the recipient of ComEd’s largesse.”