dho: ComEd convictions send message to Springfield, but are Democratic leaders listening?

As we contemplate the guilty verdicts against four executives on charges of corrupt dealings with Illinois political leadership on behalf of ComEd, we can't help thinking back to an editorial we published a little over a year ago when former House Speaker Michael Madigan was indicted on corruption charges.

"If you read the indictment," we quoted John Shaw, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, "it's not just an indictment of Madigan. It's almost an indictment of the whole political system in Illinois."

So, here we are again. In a state where, by one count, more than 2,100 Illinois public officials have gone to federal prison, four private citizens appear headed for that fate, apparently for determining that in order to get what you want from this state's government, you play what Mike McClain, a contract lobbyist for ComEd and one of the four defendants convicted, called in a wiretapped conversation a "tier one" game of bribery and favors.

McClain and the three other executives - former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, former City Club of Chicago President Jay Doherty, and John Hooker, a former ComEd executive turned contract lobbyist - found last week that there is a stiff price for losing that game.

That's an important message to send, and surely it will also be reflected in whatever sentences the so-called ComEd Four earn. But the profound question looms: Will it be enough?

And will the pending Madigan trial on similar charges be enough when it takes place?

It can't be ignored that in spite of the 2,100 federal imprisonments, in spite of a sustained reputation as one of the most corrupt political environments in the country, in spite of outcries from the public, Illinois' lawmakers continue to offer at best mere nods and winks at the problem.

Democrats in Springfield, the party in power and the party that has most resisted serious reform, like to point to a set of minor ethics bills passed in 2021, but almost every authority who has studied the legislation agrees it hardly goes far enough to address the serious ethics problem facing the state.

Again, as we observed a year ago, even a key sponsor of that legislation, Democratic state Sen. Anne Gillespie of Arlington Heights, called it just a "first step."

Sadly, we have yet to hear when Democratic leaders will take that next step. When the state's legislative watchdog will be given real authority to identify and pursue ethics complaints. When lawmakers will have to face tougher rules before turning around to become lobbyists. When they'll have to face up to and truly abandon conflicts of interest.

It would be gratifying if we could trust that the convictions of the ComEd Four and Madigan's eventual trial could be seen as a pivotal victory over the "tier one game." Sadly, we doubt that many see it that way.

The convictions, too, are an important "first step" toward that goal. But if the many Democratic lawmakers of integrity in Springfield really want to regain the confidence of the public and restore some luster to their sorry reputations, they will see it as only that and begin pressuring their leadership to let them take many more.