THE ILLINOIZE: Monday Free for All

Mar 14, 2022

March 14, 2022

Good morning.

As I write this, it’s 1:17 A.M. and my co-author is not being particularly helpful.

So yeah, I’m not going to be very clever here other than to say Illinois got a 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. They’ll play Friday against UT-Chattanooga. Interestingly, that’s the same school that pulled a major upset on Illinois in 1997. I was in 7th grade and the kids on the team weren’t born yet. (Not kidding. Alfonso Plummer, the oldest kid on the team, was born about six months later.) So, I’m not worried about any bad juju.

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Co-author just spit up. I’m outta here.

Let’s get to it.

YOUR MONDAY FREE FOR ALL

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Chicago man charged with threatening state Rep. Deb Conroy (Daily Herald)

A 59-year-old Chicago man has been charged with threatening State Rep. Deb Conroy, a Villa Park Democrat.
Cort Chubko, of the 6200 block of South Whipple Street, faces one count of threatening a public official and one count of intimidation. Bond was set at $100,000 during a Saturday morning court hearing. His next court appearance is April 4
Chubko was taken into custody Friday afternoon from his residence without incident, authorities said.
"For government to function properly, public officials must be allowed to perform their jobs without having to worry about retribution or fear for their personal safety," DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement.

Related: More details, including the full release from the DuPage County State’s Attorney (The Illinoize)

Did McClain speak for the House speaker? A legal battle to watch for in Madigan case (Chicago Sun-Times)

Because Madigan and McClain are charged as co-conspirators, legal experts predict prosecutors will move to use such words, as well as recorded statements from McClain, against Madigan if the case ever goes to trial.
“And the defense is going to want to keep these recordings from coming in,” said Nancy DePodesta, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who is now partner and co-chair of the white-collar practice group at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr.
That makes it a legal battle to watch for as Madigan’s case winds its way to a jury — a process that will likely take years.
Attorneys for the two men declined to comment. McClain attorney Patrick Cotter has previously said prosecutors have tried to get McClain to cooperate “for years,” but “he will never testify falsely about himself or anyone.”
Madigan and McClain are charged with a racketeering conspiracy in the highly anticipated March 2 indictment. They each pleaded not guilty through their lawyers during an arraignment held by phone.
The indictment alleged the two men — along with Madigan’s law firm, the speaker’s office, the 13th Ward Democratic Organization and others — formed the “Madigan Enterprise,” which was designed to enrich Madigan and his allies, and to expand Madigan’s political power.
To use McClain’s statements against Madigan, DePodesta said prosecutors will have to show first that a conspiracy existed involving the two men, and then that the statements in question were made “during and in furtherance” of that conspiracy.
She said they’ll have to show their allegations are more likely true than not. And to help meet their burden, they’ll have Solis and Fidel Marquez, a onetime ComEd executive who pleaded guilty to a bribery conspiracy in 2020, agreeing to cooperate with the feds.
Prosecutors would make their case in what’s known as a Santiago proffer, typically a highly detailed document filed closer to trial.
One example in the indictment of McClain allegedly speaking for Madigan comes amid a scheme in which the feds say Madigan agreed to use his position as House speaker to help with the transfer of the Chinatown property to clear the way for the development group’s proposal.
The indictment alleges Madigan assigned McClain to work on the transfer. Then, around Dec. 18, 2017, it says Solis told McClain that, “in the past, I have been able to steer some work to Mike [Madigan], and these guys will do the same thing.”
After hearing that, the indictment alleges McClain made an agreement — that Madigan would help with the Chinatown property transfer.

These are going to be complicated “he said, she said” sorts of allegations and prosecutors are going to potentially be asking the jury to read between the lines. Obviously, we haven’t heard the tapes, but I’m still slightly skeptical of conviction.

Related: Madigan author, award winning reporter Ray Long discusses the case with The Illinoize (The Illinoize)

Opinion: Madigan, Burke cases point to unrelenting greed, though it’s not like they needed the money (Chicago Sun-Times)

Opinion: What Madigan’s Indictment Means for Illinois Republicans (The Illinoize)

1 developer, 2 Chicago corruption cases: Sun-Times identifies ‘Company A’ linked to Madigan, Burke cases (Chicago Sun-Times)

Former Rep. Pappas named to replace disgraced Cullerton in Senate (Daily Herald)

With just a month left in the scheduled session, local Democrats have named former state Rep. Diane Pappas to replace disgraced state Sen. Tom Cullerton in the 23rd District.
Pappas, who served one term as a state representative, said Thursday she was a logical choice to replace Cullerton because her experience will enable her to quickly get up to speed in the short time left in the session.
"This is by far the most stressful and the busiest time in session, and it's really hard to throw someone in there who's never done this before," she said.
Democratic Party leaders from the townships that make up the 23rd District voted over Zoom Wednesday to select Pappas from a field of five candidates.
Pappas, an Addison Township committeewoman from Itasca, was elected to the 45th District House seat in 2018 but lost the seat two years later to Republican Seth Lewis.
She said she has not circulated petitions for the June 28 primary but could be interested if a seat that would require Democratic Party officials to choose the candidate becomes available, a possibility in the newly drawn 24th District.
No Democrat had filed for the seat as of Thursday. The filing period ends Monday.

So it doesn’t sound like there was a major weekend push to get Pappas enough signatures and on the June 28 ballot. If no other Democrat files (and we haven’t heard of anyone), she’d get a rematch with Lewis, who is running for Senate after being drawn out of his House district.

Related: GOP congressional candidate touts endorsement from Hitler-quoting lawmaker (Daily Herald)

Democrats targeting new Illinois congressional district for 2022 pickup (FOX 2 St. Louis)

For Chicago businesses, life as we knew it before the pandemic may never come back (Crain’s Chicago Business)

It was supposed to “flatten the curve": Close schools and all but the most essential businesses and send people home, into a virtual world of Zoom, Amazon and Peloton.
Some thought it would last just a few weeks, but investors were already bracing for the worst: By March 20, 2020, the day Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued his stay-at-home order, the S&P 500 already had slipped well into bear market territory, down a nauseating 33% in just over a month.
Two years, millions of shots and more than 21,000 local deaths later, the Chicago business community is finally emerging from the darkness, optimistic that the COVID-19 threat is fading but resigned to the fact that it’s probably not gone for good. State and local governments have rolled back mask mandates and other restrictions. Hiring has picked up, and more companies are nudging their employees back to the office.

Related: Gas prices on the table as Illinois lawmakers discuss options for lowering costs (State Journal-Register)

Rep. Kam Buckner said he will decide after the spring legislative session whether to challenge Lightfoot in the race for Chicago mayor (Chicago Sun-Times)

Mayor Lori Lightfoot “has a personality that a lot of folks don’t like” and it’s getting in the way of solving Chicago’s intransigent problems of violent crime and public education, the chairman of the Illinois Black Caucus told the Chicago Sun-Times.
State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, said he will decide soon after the scheduled April 8 close of the spring legislative session whether to challenge Lightfoot in the race for Chicago mayor now less than one year away.
But he’s already sounding like a candidate by talking about the difficulty Lightfoot has in getting along, even with her closest allies, and about the need to “press the reset button” between the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union.
If he decides to enter the race for what he calls the “greatest job in American politics,” Buckner said he would be running “against the status quo, complacency and recalcitrance.”
“You run to a fire because you have a hose. You have a water source. ... That’s the reason I’m thinking about this,” he said.

Buckner is an incredibly interesting potential candidate. As a young (turns 37 in May) African American who played college football then went to law school, he has a great story to tell and to engage a new kind of voter in the city. And Lori Lightfoot’s numbers don’t seem to be getting any better.

Related: An early look at the race for mayor of Chicago (Chicago Sun-Times)

Obama for Mayor (Chicago Magazine)

ISP director talks challenges facing the agency (Capitol News Illinois)

Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly told a state violence prevention task force this week that expressway shootings, gun trafficking, trooper staffing levels and officer wellness are some of the biggest challenges facing the agency.
According to the ISP expressway shootings dashboard, in 2021 there were 310 reported expressway shootings in Illinois, 273 of which were reported in Cook County. Capitol News Illinois reported earlier this week on Kelly’s suggestions for addressing expressway shootings, including expanding an automated license plate reader program, giving tech companies a short window in which they must comply with warrants in investigations of expressway shootings, and updating statutes to reflect the danger of such shootings.
But Kelly also said easy access to firearms plays a role in expressway shootings, and many of the weapons used in criminal activity have previously been stolen.
Over the past two years, Kelly said the agency has gone through criminal records to identify people who should not have firearms and revoked about 17,000 Firearm Owners Identification cards and prevented about 25,000 attempts of people illegally obtaining a firearm in 2021.
Kelly suggested lawmakers update the state’s stolen firearm statute to reflect a recently-passed “Fix the FOID Act” that requires ISP to create a public database to provide information on guns that have been reported stolen.
Kelly said that with anyone being able to access the stolen gun database, there should be no ability for an individual to claim that they did not know a firearm was stolen.

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