(gentle music) - Welcome to Capitol View, the show where state house observers discuss the week that was.

And what a week it was, long-time house speaker, Mike Madigan is out of power after four decades.

And president Donald Trump is impeached again.

With us to discuss is Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political science at the university of Illinois, Springfield.

Thanks for being here Kent.

- Good to be here.

- Jerry Nowicki, bureau chief at Capitol News, Illinois.

Thanks for joining us.

- Good having me.

- Jerry, I'll start with you.

I, you know, I think we're gonna be processing this week for a very long time.

I think, you know, six months ago none of us would have ever imagined that speaker Mike Madigan would be out of power.

You know, a man who was lasted through nine governors, you know, yesterday we, on Wednesday when speaker Madigan became merely representative Mike Madigan, again, for the first time in years and years and years, he was celebrating the 50th anniversary of him actually taking the oath of office to the Illinois house for the first time.

But then this summer we saw, you know, the political world kind of turned upside down because, you know, the federal prosecutors filed this deferred prosecution agreement against Commonwealth Edison, you know, basically alleging all years long scheme of bribery to benefit the speaker.

So, you know, kind of bring me this last six months and especially the last, you know, few weeks that led to this.

How much of a surprise do you think it came to everyone that it finally shook out the way it did and now we have a new speaker, Chris Welch, the first black house speaker in Illinois history which is, you know, history making in its own, right?

So bring us up to speed.

How surprising is this development?

- Yeah, so no matter how many, I guess bread crumbs we got in the last couple of months of the various representatives peeling off their support.

I think collectively we as a media pegged around 19 when this started, there were 19 representatives who said they wouldn't vote for Madigan that put them about, we expected about 55, whatever votes for him as speaker but then the first ballot came and it was a little bit less than that, according to people in the building.

And it just, as the days went on, it's like, oh, this might actually happen even though we sort of for a couple of weeks, we thought, you know, this looks like it may happen.

There's always that sort of tendency to never count Madigan out because of his three plus decades as speaker.

So, for me just sitting there at the Bank of Springfield Center, I was cognizant of the historic moment I was witnessing and just the sheer fact, and it's not even that, we'll talk about this in depth a little bit later, but the number of massive, like transformative is a word we've all been using several times, transformative pieces of legislation that passed leading up to that and all those bills were backed by the black caucus.

And then the black caucus support was sort of, gave the bedrock to Welch's campaign for speaker that, you know, he says he had no plans to become speaker, we'll take his word for it.

I don't know if he came down here thinking I'm gonna be speaker, whatever, but it was a historic week for the black caucus.

They got a lot of stuff done and now they have among their members is the speaker of the Illinois house that has been Mike Madigan for my entire life, except for a couple of years in the nineties.

- Right, exactly.

And, you know, the black caucus became, you know, very powerful and influential over years and years and years because of alliances with speaker Madigan.

And he also, you know, one of the less sexy things that he did, but was very, very good at was controlling the legislative map making process.

And here we are in 2021, the year after a census, and there is another mapmaking process that will take place, you know, through this spring and possibly summer, but Kent, you know, walk me through I mean, for someone like the speaker who, you know, kind of his whole thing is longevity for him to finally leave like this, you know, it creates quite a power vacuum.

I mean, there's no way that someone could come in, you know, speaker Welsh could come in and then immediately fill that power vacuum.

So what do you think, you know, how do you think it, you know, people will want to fill it if not with one man, because, you know, clearly the one man in power thing that created quite a narrative for opposition to run with over and over and over again.

- Well, but it, you know, certainly the key issue was the consolidation of power combined with the fact that a certain, you know, a lot of Democrats thought that the speaker's ethical problems were hurting their brand.

Now they didn't, they only ended up losing one house seat and picked up one Senate seat in the last election but there was certainly a feeling that the fire Madigan kind of campaign that's been going on since the Rauner years was starting to catch hold.

Now, I, you know, the speaker calls members individually and talks to them about whether they're going to support him.

And so, you know, I think it was probably obvious to him that he had, you know, that he had a real problem if the 19 people were going to, you know, whatever the number was, we're going to create a stalemate.

And so, you know, though him withdrawing his candidacy was, you know, it was either a graceful way to get out or it was a hail Mary in terms of, okay, I can't get to 60, See if anybody else can come to 60, maybe you'll come back to me if you can't pull all of these different factions together.

You know, what Madigan did was to build power out of the office of the speaker really starting when he was, you know, unlikely to become mayor of Chicago back in the late 70s.

And he was a majority leader of the house.

And so it's not just the office of the speaker, it's the control of the speaker's office over the rules and procedures.

It's the control of the speaker's office over all of the resources, all of the staff, the people that, you know, step work, staff, the committee.

And it's also the lack of resources, both policy and staff that individual members have and then the control over the democratic party which that happened in the late 80s.

And so, you know, you don't expect Welsh to come in and you know, he's not gonna be party chairman.

And what will this mean for individual members?

You know, you don't know what agreements are there, will there be more resources?

Will the rules be loosened up?

You know, this may, you know, this could make a huge difference for rank and file members or it could make no difference at all other than, you know, we've got a new boss and the institution doesn't change.

So there's a tremendous amount of uncertainty going forward.

You know, Madigan has gone, this is the first African-American speaker, these are tremendous huge changes but, you know, what this means for, you know, the process and for individual rank and file member, (mumbles) this will take a while to sort out.

There's opportunity there but, you know, it doesn't mean that this is going to be, you know, that it's gonna filter down to all of the things that constituted to the basis of Madigan's power.

- Right, definitely a seismic shift.

But Jerry, I mean, I took some time to try to compare and contrast what the speaker was known for and then what speaker Welch says he might do, or, you know, the individual things that he faces.

So for example, when he was asked on Wednesday, you know, how long is an appropriate term for a house speaker, right away, without hesitation he said 10 years and, you know, would not be opposed to actually passing a law to make that so.

And, you know, he also, this Madigan was, you know, often dogged by this, you know, lots of calls of, oh, you know, corruption, corruption, corruption, when, you know, actual, tangible thing was he never gave up his name partnership and Madigan and get some dinner.

You know, one of the premier real estate tax appeals firms in the city of Chicago in the argument, there is, you know, he is the one who is in charge of legislation that affects directly or indirectly property taxes.

And, you know, when Welsh was asked yesterday, he you said he had already had conversations about leaving his own firm.

He's a partner at a firm in the city and he focuses on civil rights issues.

But definitely some differences there.

And just, you know, they have thou different types of baggage.

Well, you know, Welsh has young children and I kind of noted tongue in cheek in my story maybe a little too proud of myself, but, you know his young children made their own, their only political ambitions right now it'd probably be like, you know, local school, you know, be on the student council of their school.

But Madigan for a long time, you know, his daughter Lisa Madigan was attorney general and before that in the Illinois Senate and for a time there, you know, everyone thought she was gonna run for governor and then ultimately she said she couldn't run for governor as long as her father remained House Speaker.

And so, but you know, you might trade one set of issues.

Obviously this cloud of federal corruption we should say the speaker has not been charged with anything.

That's one cloud, but then Welch, his past is not squeaky clean necessarily.

I mean, we saw it wasn't necessarily new news but it may have been to a lot of people, media reports of, a police report from 20 so years ago of an ex-girlfriend, you know, reporting domestic violence and then some other lawsuits.

So Jerry, do you think Welsh was asked to further explain that and he kind of declined.

Do you think that that's gonna be a huge issue going forward that's gonna continue to, so we're trading one set of issues for another in baggage of the house speaker?

- Yeah, I think representative Kelly Cassidy put out a statement saying I've known and respect Welch as a colleague and I think he's a good man.

But, you know, she's been outspoken in defense of other women who have been subject to that level of domestic violence or something and she's been outspoken and in defense of them and she said, you know, we need a rigorous sort of look into Welch's past in this area.

And he sorta has to answer to that her long statement.

She was sort of, you know, just saying that she's hopeful he could be successful and you gotta diversify leadership, but these are major things that we need to look at as a state and as a legislative body.

So then Welch's statement is of course, you know, this woman is now a constituent of mine, we reconciled, I think the way he worded it, the way this was worded he said they went to the authorities together.

I don't know what that means but he didn't really explain it, when I asked about it, he said, that's as far as I need to say on that.

But he also says my record in the general assembly shows that I speak, that I respect women and long story short, there I think there is some level of, that that's going to be chasing him as long as he's speaker.

I don't know if it would take the woman from the incident in coming public.

I'm not suggesting that should happen at all but I think speaker Welch had said, you know, I'm respectful of her privacy.

So I don't know, I really don't know how that's going to play out.

But you also have the political ramifications sort of between he and leader Durkin which I think will be interesting to watch play out to after Welch was on the committee investigating speaker Madigan.

So there's all sorts of dynamics.

I think that we'll have to watch.

This is just so new for all of us and it's just an interesting time right now, certainly.

- Right, I mean, even though speaker Madigan's gone, gone, I mean, he remains a state representative.

I'm not sure if he'll, you know, how long he'll stay, if he'll stay.

- As of the time of this taping.

- Yes, and he was sworn in and referred to as representative Madigan.

Like I said, at the top of the show, something he hasn't been known as, since, you know, early 1983.

But, you know, like you mentioned the special investigating committee which Republican house leader Jim Durkin had requested be open, I think it was like end of August, you know, it was supposed to have, you know, investigated whether Madigan did anything untoward as a legislator but, you know, essentially what happened is Welch is the chairman of that committee kind of blocked Madigan from having to testify or answer for anything.

So, you know, Kent leader Durkin took the opportunity on Wednesday to, you know, say to denounce that.

And he kind of spoke out of, I felt both sides is about, he said, you know, I'm ready to turn the page on this.

However, you know, he was still, I mean, he gave a pretty blustery speech on the makeshift house floor of the Bank of Springfield Center, you know, denouncing Madigan for kind of maybe the last time, or I doubt, it's the last time, but, you know, what does that mean that Madigan has gone but not really gone Kent?

- Well, you know, in terms of relationships between the Democrats and the Republicans, you know, obviously it's going to be acrimonious.

You know, I don't expect Welsh and Durkin to become, you know, good buddies all of a sudden.

The Republicans are in a very difficult situation.

You know, they have 44 members to 70 or 45 members to 73.

They only have, they're only 18 out of 59 Republicans in the Senate.

Republicans are pretty irrelevant if the Democrats are United.

And so, you know, the hook has been, you know, Madigan, Madigan, Madigan in terms of why you shouldn't vote for the Democrats.

You know, the state has plenty of problems.

There are plenty of issues to run on two years from now that there's absolutely no question but it's really hard to let go in terms of you've been hammering on a theme and not really making even though, you know, you can say, well, they got a stalemate out of the last selection.

And so, there's a lot of frustration on the part of the Republicans.

I just quickly, you know, you would say in terms of, you know, how is Welsh different from Madigan, you know, Madigan came to power as a protege of Richard J Daley.

He was part of the regular organization machine within the city of Chicago.

He's an old style Illinois politician which is about politics, is about relationships and trust and, you know, advantage, power, it's very pragmatic.

And, you know, Welch comes from an entirely different era and entirely different background, you know, coming up through, you know, local school board, having the support of the black caucus rather than, you know, the regular organization, democratic party of Cook County that would always deliver, you know, unanimous votes and support for candidates.

And so, you know, it's a different era and a different style of politics.

And so, you know, that's going to be, you know, in so far as Madigan was able to maintain that way that he approached politics, you know, that is going to be gone and we'll see what kind of vacuum we get, but certainly they come from very, very different places in terms of their political experiences.

- Right, and in the seven or so minutes we have left I do want to get to, you know, the black caucuses historic agenda that they passed but also the president's second impeachment.

So Jerry I'll ask you, give me, you know, run through what the black caucus was able to accomplish in you know, the five short days of a lame duck session and what ramifications that might have in the future for Democrats, for the black caucus and, you know, kind of the (muffled speaking) to, especially from policing (faintly speaking).

- So this is, there were, they had a four pillar legislative agenda focusing on healthcare, education, human services and then obviously the criminal justice, I think there was one more, they passed, essentially.

Yeah, so there were at least four major bills but some of them were in multiple bills.

This stuff pass rapid fire, there were some amendments to it.

I think the healthcare one initially was going to phase out managed care.

I think that's removed now.

So a lot of stuff was sort of not muted, but some provisions taken out and then criminal justice, you have of course getting rid of cash bail by 2023 was a big one and then there are some requirements regarding use of force and then the attorney General's de-certification of lawmakers, I think that's going to create some databases so you can search where maybe there have been misconduct complaints or investigations of an officer.

I think that some of those details are in these bills that, you know, that one came to the floor at 3:00 AM, came into an amendment at 3:00 AM, was voted on 4:00 AM, 5:00 AM, whatever it was.

There was really, I know, I think I can speak for you as well, Hannah when we're gonna be really ironing out the details of these for a couple of days to come, just making sure we have everything right and making sure we know every provision that was removed from these bills.

So I will say from a process perspective, I think it gives credence to some of the Republican arguments that, you know, this is why you can't trust Illinois government, this type of stuff happens while you're sleeping.

That's not speaking to anything directly in the bills, but they're going to really change some things about Illinois government and I think we're just going to have to observe as these reforms are implemented and they play out.

- Right, I mean, like you said, it always gives ammo when you were able to stay middle of the night.

I mean, Republicans for the last decade since the 2011 lame duck income tax hike increase, they've been able to say, oh, they snuck it in the middle of the night, but Kent, I do wanna move on finally to the president, his second impeachment.

Illinois Republicans, like you said earlier, at least on the state level, you know, I don't like to use the word irrelevant, but in the grand scheme of things, they're not the one in power, but what does it mean that, you know, only one of Illinois Republican, you know, representatives in Congress voted to impeach on Wednesday?

And what does that mean also, just going forward for the Republican party and what even folks at the state level who might consider themselves matter will have to answer to?

- Well, you know, it is part of the brand in terms of the Republican base.

So there's absolutely no problem, no question about that.

And so this can have implications for primaries as we sort out, you know, the Republicans are basically downstate, Kissinger's district is the Northern most district, we're probably will lose a congressional seat.

We could have nasty primaries in terms of how that sorts out.

If the primary for governor is a fight between the pro-Trump and the anti-Trump factions of the democratic party, you reprise, you know, kind of Bruce Rauner versus Jeannie Ives before the general election when Pritzker was elected, you know, and so until they sort out kind of who they are and how they're going to deal with the Trump supporters, which are a huge part of their base, it makes it difficult for them to go forward in terms of running in a state where it's very difficult for them to elect someone statewide, it's very difficult because of the redistricting dynamics for them to really pick up seats.

You know, they lose if they pick up seats in Southern Illinois and they lose them in the suburbs, southern Illinois is shrinking in population, the suburbs are growing.

So they really don't need a nasty inner party fight over the soul of the Republican party if they're gonna be effective in terms of gaining ground in Illinois.

- But we've, I mean, we have already seen that play out over the last, you know, year or so, or excuse me, not year but several years.

I think the Rauner years really did make a difference in terms of Rauner was, I could, I would qualify him as a libertarian, but then he went and signed that abortion bill HB 40 and angered all the conservatives.

And, you know, they never really figured that out.

And obviously on the national level, they haven't figured that out.

And also in the democratic party on both sides, like they need to figure out how to prioritize or like how to work together, the progressives and the, you know, what would you, moderates.

But I don't know, historians will say that we never really had a true two party system and it's always been more of a four party system.

And I do wonder sometimes if we're ever gonna make that kind of official, but anyway, we are out of time.

Thank you so much, Kent Redfield and Jerry Nowicki for joining me today on this very historic weird week that we're gonna be processing for a long time, but glad to see you guys I'll be (indistinct).

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