Daily Herald opinion: Madigan’s mold: Reputation for government corruption may color Illinois, but so does a commitment for rooting it out

And so another once-powerful Illinois politician is headed for prison. Let the jeers about the state’s politics begin.

Or, maybe, not quite so fast.

To be sure, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s conviction and sentencing on corruption charges is another stain on the state’s reputation. Famous for having four governors or former governors imprisoned in the last 50 years, Illinois now will see a man who often wielded more influence than most state chief executives — and the longest-serving legislative leader anywhere in U.S. history — don prison garb and enter a federal penitentiary.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey sentenced Madigan to seven and a half years in prison and issued a fine of $2.5 million.

“Being great is hard. Being honest is not,” Blakey said from the bench. “It’s hard to commit crimes. It actually takes effort.”

The effort for which Madigan was sentenced was helping ensure approval of legislation benefiting ComEd in exchange for kickbacks, jobs for people loyal to him and other favors. That event was only one experience in a House career that spanned nearly 40 years, but it cannot escape the public’s notice — and indeed was often a reference point during his trial — that many of the behaviors behind the accusations against him hewed closely to his reputation for toughness, influence peddling and manipulation of the machinery of government.

It would be a natural reaction to consider Madigan’s fate a repudiation of his attorneys’ appeal for a lighter sentence.

“The rhetoric wants to make Mike responsible for the long history of corruption in Illinois. He is not, Judge. He is one man,” pleaded attorney Dan Collins.

Blakey’s tough response to that argument for the 83-year-old politician can easily be read as a stand against that “long history of corruption in Illinois.”

But another reading is also possible — and important to remember. Illinois has the reputation for corruption that it has not just because so many of its most powerful leaders have been convicted of crimes but because they were caught. The citizens of the state and the apparatus of its own and the federal government’s justice system do not timidly tolerate scheming in government. They challenge it. They rise up against it when they can and they try to do something about it.

It can take a long time — as the Madigan story amply demonstrates — and sometimes, sadly, some bad actors may get away with abuses of power or corrupt actions. But if there is a culture of corruption in Illinois government, there is also a culture in Illinois of seeking it out and trying to make examples of those who engage in it.

With that observation in mind, Madigan’s tale may hold one other moral for those who might be inclined to mimic his style of secretive power brokering. That thought is encapsulated in remarks by prosecutor Sarah Streicker, who noted that the speaker who served through seven governors “had every opportunity to set the standard for honest government” but instead “fit right into the mold of yet another corrupt leader in Illinois.”

She could have accurately added “who is going to prison” to that phrase. Perhaps realizing that result offers some measure of consolation for use contemplating Madigan’s actions and of warning for those leaders or would-be leaders who may be tempted to fit the mold that they represent.