Lake County Gazette

Republican state Senate candidate Chris Kasperski is calling on his opponent, state Sen. Melinda Bush (D-Grayslake), to “do the right thing” by returning all the campaign money she’s received from embattled House Speaker Mike Madigan.

In addition, Kasperski is also pushing an idea that would see all the fines paid by ComEd stemming from its admitted involvement in a pay-for-play scheme that has resulted in an ongoing federal investigation returned to taxpayers.

“I think we should see that massive fine coming back to all of us who paid inflated utility bills to bribe Mike Madigan,” he added. “We are paying for them to fix the system.”

With a bipartisan Special House committee now convened to look into some of the speaker’s more questionable behavior related to the ongoing ComEd federal corruption probe, Madigan recently let it be known he has no intention of answering questions about his suspected involvement before the bipartisan panel. The state’s longest-tenured lawmaker made his feelings clear in a three-page letter he sent to committee members in which he also forcefully defended his widely known practice of patronage hiring as not “ethically improper.”

“I would be astonished to see if any of the three hand-picked Democrats on this committee will turn on their boss,” Kasperski told the Lake County Gazette. “They have endorsed him for his positions of power and held their tongue as he used both to enrich his tax appeal law firm.”

In a year in which four Springfield Democrats have been indicted on corruption related charges, the committee was formed at the insistence of House Minority Leader Jim Durkin after Madigan was implicated in an ongoing federal probe involving utility giant ComEd and a pay-for-play scheme.

The six-member bipartisan committee is made up of three GOP lawmakers (state Reps. Tom Demmer of Dixon, Deanne Mazzochi of Elmhurst and Grant Wehrli of Naperville) and three Democrats (state Reps. Emanuel “Chris” Welch of Hillside, Elizabeth Hernandez of Cicero and Natalie Manley of Joliet). A majority vote is needed for the probe to proceed to the next stage – a new committee empowered to determine potential sanctions that would then be voted on by the entire House. A two-thirds majority would be required for any discipline to be taken against Madigan, which could include expulsion.

Kasperski doesn’t expect to see it come to that.

“The way that Madigan has stacked the deck in his favor by gerrymandering the districts and controlling the spending that is provided to each Democratic candidate and funding appropriation made to their districts deters any meaningful resistance from within the Illinois Democratic Party,” he said. “We need to reassemble our General Assembly by not rewarding any incumbent another term and the pay increase that comes with it.”