Initial thoughts on the occasion of Mr. Madigan's indictment

FWIW readers can access the 106-page indictment against the former House Speaker by clicking here.

At least that's the plan. If my techological skills have once again failed me, readers can nevertheless find the indictment by following links from yesterday's press release from the United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois.

The gentleman at right is not Mr. Madigan, of course.

He is in fact General George B. McClellan, one-time Commanding General of the U.S. Army, the Democratic nominee for President in 1864, and, until yesterday at least, the figure from history who most reminded me of Michael J. Madigan.

McClellan built and shaped and nutured the enormous Army of the Potomac out of eager, but raw, volunteers. He had remarkable skills in logistics: McClellan's troops were well-supplied, well-equipped, well-drilled -- but they were hardly ever used.

If only McClellan had been chief of staff to a better general, one who knew how to use the machine McClellan made for its intended purpose of restoring the Union, McClellan might be regarded today as among the greatest heroes of the Republic. But it was not to be: Even when he had in his hands Lee's written deployment instructions for the invasion of Maryland (Special Order 191), the best he could do, at the Battle of Antietam, was fight Lee to a draw.

Madigan built a great army, too. Two great armies, perhaps: His supermajority in the Illinois House of Representatives and the army of volunteers and staff that delivered votes for that supermajority. Madigan was either the greatest cartographer of our age or he showed great managerial skill in recognizing and promoting cartographic talent in others. Either way, he deserves credit for the Illinois legislative maps that were drawn. In 2014, for example, when Bruce Rauner won 50.3% of the vote and was elected Governor of the State of Illinois (carrying every Illinois county except Cook), Madigan retained a 71-vote supermajority in the Illinois House, just more than 60% of the total membership, on only 50.49% of the statewide party vote.

Any candidate recruited by Mr. Madigan for a House district worked that district, door-to-door, day in and day out, long, long before any votes were cast. Madigan candidates (and their handlers) took extensive note of what their would-be constitutents wanted, and what they feared, and then (at least according to his critics) preyed on those fears in endless mailings, tying the opposition candidate in any way imaginable to those fears. These tactics turned many "no" votes into no-shows and many "maybes" into yeses. It didn't always work -- but it worked often, and for a long time.

Madigan knew the rules. He wrote many of them, starting with his participation in the Constitutional Convention that produced our current Illinois Constitution.

But how did he use the machine he built?

Illinois went without a budget for the first three year's of Bruce Rauner's gubernatorial term. And, yes, it is the Governor's responsibility, not the House Speaker's, to craft and submit a balanced state budget. But Rauner came into office with an apparent lack of knowledge of the workings of state government. He seems to have thought he could somehow actually "fire Madigan" (as the chants went at Republican rallies). I wrote in 2016, when the state marked its second anniversary without a budget, that Illinois had become a "national joke." I suggested that Mr. Madigan (and then-Senate President Cullerton, who also had a veto-proof majority) should have taken matters in hand and used their supermajorities to pass a veto-proof budget. Another year went by before that happened.

At the time I wrote about it, it was pointed out to me that Madigan's "supermajority" only existed on paper. He couldn't count on some votes on many issues, and perhaps he would lose many votes on some others. But isn't that where leadership and vision and maybe even compromise can come into play? What good was a supermajority if no attempt was ever made to use it? As Lincoln kept asking, what good was the Army of the Potomac if it always stayed in camp?

McClellan's soldiers initially loved "Little Mac." They were fed and fit and alive.

The problem was that army camps, in the Civil War, were actually more dangerous, ultimately, than battlefields. Twice as many Civil War soldiers succumbed to death from disease as from bullets, shells and bayonets.

Was that what happened to Madigan's army, too? Did corruption seep into Madigan's camp like disease into an army camp?

Until yesterday's indictment, I thought that Madigan failed to use the great power he accumulated because he lacked a plan, or vision, of what to do with that power -- and also becaue he lacked, as McClellan lacked, confidence in the judgment of others about how to use that power. And on this latter point perhaps not entirely without reason: Rod Blagojevich, for example, was no Lincoln.

But now the United States Attorney suggests another, and altogether tawdry explanation: The machine was not idle. It was used. But only for individual gain. For money.

If the U.S. Attorney is correct, a number of Madigan's cronies were active participants in a criminal enterprise headed by Madigan himself. But McClellan had many good officers who acquitted themselves well under subsequent commanders. Mr. Madigan had a number of good people working for him, too. Dedicated public servants. Interested in what was best for the State. If the allegations of the lengthy indictment are proven, these good people were poorly served. But, then, so were we all.