Prairie State Wire

Swamp Tours is a weekly column written by a veteran Springfield observer and insider. Send feedback to staffreports@lgis.co. 

In the first installment of Springfield Swamp Tours, we described how Mike Madigan created a Mafia culture in Illinois state government.  

Throughout his ongoing, forty-year reign of terror, Madigan employs the same organizational structure as the Cosa Nostra.   His is a top-down model, utilizing one or more “Underbosses” to receive orders from the Boss and direct the lieutenants-- call them “Capos”-- and their underlings' activities.  It is a clear organizational pyramid where all decisions flow from the top.  

The organization also requires a consigliere, the trusted advisor to the Boss. Traditionally an attorney who avoids much of the dirty work, the consigliere deals with the banks and other legitimate enterprises.  

Throughout most of its history, the Madigan Mafia had two Underbosses-- Mike McClain and Tim Mapes.  Their duties were similar, but their territory distinct.  

Mapes handled all the inside operations with government and political entities. Until accusations of sexual harassment led to his downfall in October 2018, he concurrently held the positions of Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the Illinois House, Executive Director of the Illinois Democratic Party, and Clerk of the Illinois House.  

Through these positions, on Madigan's behalf, Mapes controlled the flow of legislation and the allocation of financial and human resources from both the state legislature and the State Party.  In addition to directing the Capos on the staff, he also ran the Capos installed in prominent non-state government (but state government-impacted) positions.  Those might include, for example, the executive director of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, the President of the Cable TV and Communications Association of Illinois and the Director of the Illinois Long-Term Care Council.  

McClain handled Madigan’s outside work.  As a practicing attorney and former legislator, McClain's main task was enforcing discipline with all the contract lobbyists in the Boss’ organization.  He also communicated with the leaders of the other crime families in Springfield (known as the “Five Tops”), keeping all the Springfield insiders in-line while overseeing the doling out of lobbyist contracts for many Statehouse entities, including Illinois energy giant Exelon.  McClain has accomplished this by cultivating personal relationships with Illinois’ business elite.  

For decades, McClain was the contract lobbyist for the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a who's who of Chicago's business elite.  From this perch, he demonstrated that he spoke for the Speaker and could deliver outcomes beneficial to the committee’s' business interests.  That position put him in the intersection of Illinois business and government, allowing him to advise most industries on who to hire for their Springfield lobbying teams.  

McClain shared an office with the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, whose members include hundreds of grocery stores, pharmacies and gas stations, and socialized weekly with the president of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association, which represents the largest private employers in the state. This garnered him significant influence over the two most influential statehouse business organizations while also facilitating seamless delivery of messages from the Boss.  

McClain was known to call lobbyists and inform them of their hiring, even before the client called the lobbyist.  Everyone in Springfield knew that you had to be on good paper with Mike McClain if you wanted to earn.  He directed hiring and contracts for key industries-- from nursing homes to gaming, financial services, utilities, and health care.

With Madigan’s direction, McClain would then assign one of his contract lobbyist Capos to oversee the client.  That Capo would direct political contributions and advise on policy positions, always taking care to frame Springfield as a dangerous place with many lousy policy outcomes where only Mike Madigan could protect their business or industry.

With Mapes handling inside operations and McClain talking to the outside world, Madigan consolidated all the power.  By the early 2000’s, after Madigan elected his daughter as the state's chief law enforcement officer, the operation was running as smoothly as a U.S. Mint printing press.  

However, McClain retired at the end of 2016, and his absence degraded discipline amongst Madigan’s Capos. That, paired with the untimely ousting of Mapes two years later, put a major strain on the organization. People got sloppy. They got greedy. And federal prosecutors pounced.