The outcome of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s corruption trial will be watched closely well beyond Chicago’s federal courthouse, with the verdict representing a potential make-or-break moment at the Illinois Capitol. As the all-important closing arguments in Madigan’s case are on track to wrap up by week’s end, Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and state lawmakers must now brace themselves for the culmination of a trial that has put a spotlight on Illinois’ messy intersection of money, special interests and power politics. A guilty verdict in the landmark bribery and racketeering case would give elected officials little place to hide. Some observers say the unending marching line of state, city and suburban officials who have gone to prison already provides a strong incentive to get serious about enacting reforms, but a Madigan conviction would certainly underscore it. “If not now, when? Why not?” asked Connie Mixon, an Elmhurst University political science professor who testified as an expert for federal prosecutors in the 2023 trial that sent longtime 14th Ward Ald. Edward M. Burke to prison. “Over the years, we’ve had lots of talk of ethics reform with not nearly enough action.” Madigan, 82, a Southwest Side Democrat, and his co-defendant, Michael McClain, 77, a former ComEd lobbyist and confidant, have pleaded not guilty to wide-ranging charges alleging they illicitly squeezed ComEd and AT&T Illinois to give their allies jobs and contracts. Madigan is also accused of abusing his public duties to garner property-tax business for his private law firm. After three months of evidence featuring more than 60 witnesses and scores of wiretapped recordings and undercover videos, closing arguments are slated to begin Wednesday and last for three days. The jury is expected to start deliberating the week of Jan. 27, with a decision possible as soon as the end of the month. The stakes couldn’t be higher for Madigan and McClain, who even at their advanced age could face long stints in prison if convicted. But there’s a wider impact as well, one that could be felt from the Capitol building in Springfield to Chicago’s City Hall. The trial has amplified the findings of the Tribune’s “Culture of Corruption” series last year that documented how weak laws on campaign finance, ballot access, lobbying, ethics and oversight, and the byzantine structure of local government, among other issues, have helped dishonest politicians thrive in Illinois. Four of the state’s last 11 governors and nearly 40 Chicago aldermen in the last half century have served time in prison. A steady stream of state lawmakers and local suburban officials also have been caught illegally engorging themselves at the public trough, with others, such as state Sen. Emil Jones III, still awaiting trial. The last major push in Illinois for reform came 16 years ago after the legislature impeached and removed Gov. Rod Blagojevich. His successor, fellow Democrat Pat Quinn, created the Illinois Reform Commission, which made progress in Springfield but in the end did little to enact the sweeping changes that advocates wanted. That’s because lawmakers allergic to game-changing reform worked vigorously to block aggressive proposals and made sure to give themselves plenty of loopholes to slip through the various restrictions they did approve. Mixon said what’s needed is a complete overhaul of ethics laws in Illinois, looking at everything from conflicts of interest to campaign finance regulation and “unchecked lobbying activity.” “In the end, we as citizens have a right to open and honest government,” Mixon told the Tribune. “Our government is supposed to provide for the public good and to serve the public, which it is clearly not doing if we keep having all of these corruption issues. It erodes our public trust in government at a time when trust in all levels of government is declining.” Kent Redfield, a campaign finance expert, said the state’s ever-growing roll call of public officials in trouble speaks to the need for systemic reforms to rein in the freewheeling political environment highlighted by the Madigan case. Redfield, a retired professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, warned that state policymakers too often declare the “system worked” whenever a politician is caught up in a corruption case, and then they lean on that as an excuse to avoid tightening restrictions on themselves. “If you just focus on weeding out the bad apples, that’s just kind of a guarantee for further crop failure,” Redfield said. An unflattering look Regardless of whether the jury decides what Madigan and McClain did was a crime, the trial has provided a deep and often distasteful dive into how Illinois government really works. Madigan’s attorneys — as well as the ex-speaker himself, testifying in his own defense — have argued that much of what the government alleged was illegal bribery was actually just everyday politicking, where lobbyists are paid to legally influence legislators on behalf of clients and job recommendations are merely an offshoot of an elected official’s power. And while Madigan was certainly powerful, his attorneys have argued he wielded it benevolently, providing jobs and opportunities for his constituents and always with an eye on protecting the Democratic Party agenda and blue-collar families. “He has never made a demand on anybody,” Madigan defense lawyer Tom Breen said in his opening statement in October, at one point slapping the lectern for effect. “If someone says he did, that’s bull. That’s just bull.” Prosecutors, however, are primed to argue that with the decline of the old patronage system, in which politicians gave government jobs to political workers who helped get them elected, Madigan got his favored precinct captains jobs with private companies instead. In exchange, they said, Madigan helped support those companies’ agendas in Springfield. “Madigan wanted, ComEd gave, and ComEd got,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker told jurors during her opening statement, and later added: “Madigan wanted, AT&T gave, and AT&T got.” Jurors have seen floods of strongly worded emails from McClain — purportedly sent at Madigan’s behest — urging ComEd representatives to hire certain people regardless of their qualifications or even interest in the positions available. McClain also bombarded ComEd executives with demands to increase payments for a clouted law firm run by Madigan ally Victor Reyes, at one point letting everyone at the utility know how “valuable (Reyes) is to our Friend.” “I know the drill and so do you,” the 2016 email read. “If you do not get involve(d) and resolve this issue of 850 hours for his law firm per year then he will go to our Friend. Our Friend will call me and then I will call you. Is this a drill we must go through?” Five longtime Madigan allies — precinct captains Ed Moody and Ray Nice, former Ald. Frank Olivo and Mike Zalewski, and ex-state Rep. Edward Acevedo — allegedly received lucrative subcontracts from ComEd for little or no work, paid through what prosecutors call “pass-through” contractors allegedly in order to hide the payments. Acevedo, once on Madigan’s leadership team, became a flashpoint over similar payments that a middleman allegedly passed along from ATT. Even ComEd’s summer intern program reserved certain spots for candidates from Madigan’s 13th Ward, which prosecutors characterized as part of a slew of bribes in exchange for Madigan’s support of ComEd-friendly legislation. At one point in early 2019, McClain and John Hooker, a former ComEd lobbyist and Madigan ally, talked about the alleged scheme in startlingly blunt fashion, each taking credit and laughing at the apparent genius of it all. “We had to hire these guys because Mike Madigan came to us,” McClain told Hooker on the wiretapped call. “That’s how simple it is. So if you want to make a federal court suit over it, OK. But that’s how simple it is.” Former lobbyist Michael McClain talks with an attorney after a court session in his corruption trial with former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on Jan. 8, 2025. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune) The trial also centered on a separate alleged scheme where prosecutors say Madigan put pressure on deep-pocketed real estate developers to hire Madigan’s law firm for tax appeal work. At the government’s direction, then-Ald. Daniel Solis, who was secretly cooperating with the FBI after being confronted with his own misdeeds, asked Madigan for help getting an appointment to a lucrative state board seat in exchange for his help connecting Madigan to developers, according to trial evidence. The overall pattern, prosecutors alleged, shows Madigan as a schemer who is willing to abuse his extraordinarily powerful position to enrich himself and his allies. Madigan’s defense, however, has painted him as the exact opposite: A hardworking public servant who didn’t immediately object to some of the shady statements on wiretapped calls because he was, by nature, nonconfrontational. In a surprising move late in the trial, Madigan took the stand in his own defense. Over the course of four days he completely disavowed any knowledge of certain alleged schemes and gave innocuous explanations for some of his statements on wiretaps. Even the now-infamous “bandits” tape, in which he and McClain share a chuckle over how some ComEd subcontractors “made out like bandits” for doing little work, was referring to certain lobbyists, Madigan said, not the ComEd subcontractors at issue in the trial. Madigan also took steps, where he could, to distance himself from McClain, a close friend, confidant and frequent dinner companion he’s known since their days together in the legislature in the 1970s. During a lengthy and tough cross-examination, Madigan was asked whether he reciprocated McClain’s loyalty. “I don’t think I was as loyal to him as he was to me,” Madigan said. “I would have differences of opinion with him. I didn’t always accept his advice.” In a more poignant moment, Madigan was asked by McClain’s lawyer, Patrick Cotter, whether their friendship survived. “It did until recently,” Madigan replied. McClain’s attorneys, meanwhile, are banking on an argument that everything he did can be categorized as perfectly legal lobbying. His often-professed loyalty to Madigan — his “real client” — is not a sign of his participation in a criminal enterprise, they say, but an effort to maintain good relations to support his lobbying career. “Isn’t it a fact that around your office there was a saying, ‘Today, we have to treat Mike (McClain) like a lobbyist?'” Cotter asked Madigan in his questioning on Jan. 8. “Correct,” Madigan replied. “Because on those days, Mike was in there pitching for his clients?” Cotter asked. “And we would be disagreeing with his message,” Madigan said. Jurors have not heard that McClain was already found guilty of bribery-related charges in the 2023 “ComEd Four” trial, though attorneys for him and the three other defendants, including Hooker, are fighting to get that conviction reversed in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling reinterpreting parts of the federal bribery statute. What’s to be done? As the Madigan trial has unfolded, broad discussions are beginning to take place among good-government advocates to determine whether the current political atmosphere and upcoming gubernatorial election cycle will present an opportunity to press forward for changes now, said Alisa Kaplan, executive director of Reform for Illinois. Among the ideas getting bandied about are strengthening the legislative inspector general and the legislative ethics commission as well as seeking to improve the revolving-door clause overseeing lawmakers going into lobbying, conflicts of interest and other avenues of government oversight, Kaplan said. Separately, Kaplan said, her nonprofit group, which tracks money in politics and advocates for transparency, wants to take another shot at passing legislation to unmask dark money donations so that original, unnamed donors to super PACs would be disclosed. Furthermore, Kaplan will seek to put a clear definition in state law of what illegal coordination is between candidates and super PACs. The issue came to a head last year over a Democratic complaint filed with state election officials that charged former state Sen. Darren Bailey, the 2022 Republican candidate for governor, had improperly coordinated with a super PAC overseen by GOP conservative Dan Proft, a radio talk show host. But the board dismissed the complaint in June, citing in part the lack of a definition for coordination. As a new legislative session begins, Pritzker and state lawmakers will be able to consider all angles if they want to go beyond a small-bore set of reforms they enacted in the governor’s first term. Just one of many potential reforms that touch upon issues arising from the sprawling Madigan-related investigation is how Illinois allows state-regulated utilities to give campaign donations to politicians, a practice that Mixon, the Elmhurst University professor, said should be banned. Madigan once called upon ComEd and Exelon to raise $450,000 at their annual fundraiser for the Illinois Democratic Party during negotiations over one of the massive pro-utility bills that would later pass the General Assembly, according to Fidel Marquez, a senior ComEd executive who pleaded guilty in the probe and gave the estimate at the previous “ComEd Four” case. In fact, state campaign records show ComEd and corporate parent Exelon as well as AT&T were among the highest corporate givers to Illinois politicians over five straight election cycles, starting in 2010 and through the 2018 state campaign seasons, those most closely linked to the time period surrounding the Madigan investigation. “These groups have something to gain from currying favor with the powerful speaker of the Illinois House, and so, of course, they’re going to feel pressure to contribute to campaigns or campaign fundraising,” Mixon said.