- [Lora] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

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- The former speaker is indicted and a return to normalcy, or whatever that means, in "The Cities".

("Never Let Go" Dan Phillipson) ("Never Let Go" Dan Phillipson ends) It's gone, but not diminished, the Omicron COVID surge has come and gone, hospitals can breathe a little easier, for now.

We'll have more on that in a moment.

But first, if you're surprised by what I'm about to say, you are in the minority.

An Illinois politician faces federal charges accused of using his powers in office to benefit himself and his associates.

You're not surprised are you?

And that really is the problem in Illinois as former House speaker, Michael Madigan, now faces 23 federal charges of racketeering, wire fraud, bribery, and attempted extortion.

The man once labeled the most powerful in Illinois faces what would surely be a life sentence for a 79-year-old South Side, Chicago politician.

And this is all unfolding as Illinois voters go to the polls and put to test the democrat's powerful hold on the state legislature and the less powerful hold on the governor's mansion.

That's why we wanted to talk with Western Illinois University Political Science Department chairman, Dr. Keith Boeckelman, who also teaches Illinois politics on the Western campus.

It's kinda sad, isn't it?

That people aren't necessarily all that surprised by this indictment.

- Well, it is.

I mean, we all know that Illinois has this long history of corruption, we've seen numerous governors go to jail.

I mean, I back remember when I was a kid, there was this scandal with former secretary of state, Paul Powell, when they found shoe boxes stuffed with money in his Springfield hotel room, and so we've had one thing after another for all these years.

And so I think, corruption is sort of steeped into the fabric of Illinois politics, and people, I don't think they're happy about it, but they're kind of resigned that this is sorta the way things are.

- And that's what's really sad because the US attorney that brought about this case, John Lausch, said, "We have a very stubborn public corruption problem here in Illinois."

And he used it in the current tense, it's not like it's past tense, it's almost like it's still continuing.

- Yeah, I do think it's continuing.

I mean, I think the question we need to look at going forward is will this Madigan indictment be seen as the last gas?

I mean, we've had three governors in a row who have not gone to jail, so that's kind of an improvement sort of.

And over time, the US Attorney's Office has been pretty aggressive in prosecuting corruption whether it's been with Rod Blagojevich or previous governors or now with Michael Madigan.

So Illinois has this long history of machine politics and I think the question going forward is, will this be seen as the last gas (indistinct) and maybe we do turn the corner?

Or is this something that will continue going on?

- Well, you did mention that badge of honor for Illinois, the three straight governors have not gone to prison, (laughs) but it's interesting that two of those three are business people who really didn't have a big political background.

Is that kind of what- - That's right.

- I mean, it almost is like, that's where the cleansing, that's where the healing began in Illinois.

- Yeah, I think that's true.

I think that's an interesting point.

One thing I've been thinking about is also, we have this long history of machine politics, again, but I also wonder with these kind of wealthy business people coming in if we're almost adopting toward a new boss type of politics.

You may remember Bruce Rauner spent 26 million on his gubernatorial campaign that seemed like a lot at the time, but then J.B. Pritzker spent 171 million, so that kinda enforced that, and now we've got Ken Griffin out there, although he's not running directly, he said he would spend up to 300 million in this upcoming election.

So I just wonder if we've traded in one kind of machine politics toward another maybe going forward.

- Well, and that's an interesting thought and much more difficult to regulate because- - It is.

- money is freedom of speech, according to some.

- Yeah, and now I do think the campaign contribution limits in Illinois are pretty lax compared to some other states.

As you say, a lot of this is considered free speech, so people spending their own money can't be regulated very much.

But the Illinois system really also funnels money into the legislative leaders, they have many fewer regulations in some rank and file legislators, and I think that's what has led to the power of people like Michael Madigan in the past, and from that perspective, it does continue to maybe perpetuate a somewhat corrupt system.

- You studied Illinois politics for years, two years ago, we saw a number of Republican ads against Democratic State Senate or state representative positions tagging them directly with Michael Madigan.

And we're already, as far as we saw from republicans shortly after the announcement of the indictments that that is going to continue.

If you were in any way linked to Michael Madigan, you're gonna be tagged with this indictment as well.

- Yes, and I think, I've wondered to some degree how effective these ads are against Michael Madigan in the past, but I do think they will probably be effective this cycle.

Now that you've had this indictment, there's a clear link in voters' minds toward this corruption and the Democratic Party and the legislature, and so I think it's maybe easier for republicans to make this case this time around than it was some of the other times they've tried it.

- Well, and republicans also say democrats shouldn't let this go on for so long.

If you listen to the US attorney, I mean, this is a decades long case that they're bringing.

I mean, 10 years and democrats did nothing to censure or I don't know, even impeach, so to speak, their speaker.

- Well, I think that there's a benefit that many rank and file members, well, they might complain a guy from having Michael Madigan particularly access the campaign money that he was able to provide them to run for office.

And so I think there was some degree of loyalty among the rank and file democrats even though they sometimes shaved over the kind of top down leadership structure that he implemented.

One thing that I find a little bit ironic is the people, the so-called 19 legislators who initially revolted against him, the democrats that kind of denied him the speakership the last time around, many of them are suburban legislators, many are women, 13 of the 19 are women.

And so some of these, I think Michael Madigan saw which way the winds were blowing in terms of the makeup of the parties in the suburbs were kind of rich opportunity for him to gain more seats and he was able to do that by helping elect some of these legislators who then turned against him because I think they were less comfortable with that machine style politics than the city legislators who had been the base of his support in the past and even some downstate legislators.

- Well, and those 19 went to the podium very quickly as well after the indictment was announced, saying, imagine what would've happened if he was still in power, if he was still at the state capital.

Does that lessen the impact of this indictment for democrats or even for the state by the fact that he's no longer in office?

- Well, I think...

They're clearly trying to do damage control and say, we did clean up the mess, we did get rid of the speaker, and so you can't blame everything on the democrats, I think is their message, but I think whether he's speaker or not right now, I think that case is harder to make with these indictments out there.

So I do think that's gonna be a tough case to make, frankly.

- What's the impact for the new speaker, Chris Welch, who the republicans say is the handpicked Madigan successor, the progressives are saying, no, no, no, no, no, we helped put him in office.

I mean, this really is a big knock for him as well.

- Well, so I think people are trying to tie him to Madigan and he's been criticized for sort of slow walking a legislative committee that was investigating Madigan before he had stepped down for speaker.

And I think the republicans would argue that he didn't do enough in that, he chaired that committee and he didn't do enough to try to take their work seriously to push out Madigan earlier.

The press conference you referred to with the 19, I believe that when they said Welch was sort of a Madigan creature, they kind of laughed that off- - [Jim] Exactly.

- and saying he was chosen by the members as a whole.

And although he was certainly, I think, someone Madigan was relatively comfortable with in exceeding to him to be the next speaker, as I understand it, Madigan also did contact other people to tell them he was going to step down, so he gave other people a chance to compete for the speakership.

And there were other candidates at that time so, but again, I think this gets a little bit insider basebally and I don't know that... You have to drill down a little bit and I think it's easy to kind of paint Welch is tied to Madigan and that's something the democrats are gonna have to deal with in the campaign.

- Let us try to put this into a little bit of perspective.

I mean, is this worse than the Rod Blagojevich issue?

I mean, you're kinda comparing perhaps apples to oranges, but I think the public is kind of in their mind saying this is all the same.

- Well, I do think... That's an interesting question.

I do think that it is different.

I mean, the Blagojevich, while he did some pretty bad things, I mean, clearly trying to sell president Obama's senate seat and things like trying to deny funding for a children's hospital.

I think those are very bad.

I almost see the, there's almost a comical aspect to some of Blagojevich's antics, it's like he just sorta saw these things coming by, like, okay, here's a chance for me to sell a senate seat.

Whereas with Madigan, I think you have this sort of established, planned, maybe more insidious version of corruption that goes on year after year after year and it's more carefully thought out, and so from that perspective, maybe it is worse.

- We have seen from time and time again in Illinois kind of this whole case of the pay to play, the use of power to gain political access.

What can be done to limit that?

There's always been talk about term limitations, of course, but also, there's been discussion about limitations of chairmanships and leaderships in order to make sure that power doesn't stay in one person's hands for decades.

- Well, so the House and the Senate have both passed rules now limiting the leaders' terms.

Now we'll see if they keep those rules in place once it gets to be that point.

As far as committee chairs, I guess I would prefer a system where the committee chairs had more power.

I mean, I always tell my students that one thing that makes the Illinois General Assembly a little bit unusual compared to other states is that so much power is concentrating on leaders, and that's true with the republicans too, I mean, it's not just the democrats.

The republican leaders have a lot of power.

In other states, the power is more dispersed among committee chairs and so I think if...

So I wouldn't limit the committee chairs' terms, but I think it is probably good to limit the leaders' terms, this has been done now.

Again, I think the question comes when we get close in several years to these term limits kicking in, will they change the rules then?

- It's always been kind of a discussion that when it comes to term limits, if you limit a lawmaker's terms, they have less knowledge of any particular topic, and it actually gives lobbyists more powers in the legislative system.

Is that just a wives' tale or is that actually something that is somewhat proven or true?

- No, there is a fair amount of political science research that suggest that is true, that lobbyists, they have an informational advantage, that they provide this institutional memory that long-term members can provide.

The other thing I think that's important to think about if you put term limits on the members is that political science research suggests that that gives the governor more power.

The Illinois governor's already relatively powerful compared to the governors in other states, so I think we also need to think about whether that's what we want or not.

I think it would make it less likely that the legislatures of co equal branch have got rid of the limit terms.

- This indictment, of course, impacts the former speaker, Madigan, and some of his associates, but what do you think is the wider impact of this?

- Well, I... As you said at the beginning, to some degree, people are gonna shrug this off and say, okay, it's Illinois and maybe we'll be on "The Daily Show" again or something like that, being made fun of for how corrupt we are or whatever it is.

But I do think it sends a message, going back to the governor, we haven't had a governor that's been indicted for three now and I think maybe the message has been sent that if you're gonna be the governor of this state, that you need to avoid certain types of corruption, you need to stay clean.

Maybe this type of indictment also sends a similar message to the legislature that they will need to watch their behavior.

And these kinds of things that Madigan is being accused of while they're different in degree to things that go on the legislature relatively routinely, I'm not sure they're so different in kind, and so maybe this has put the legislature on notice that you could face a federal indictment if you play too fast and loose with the rules.

- Our thanks to Western Illinois University Political Science Department chairman, Dr. Keith Boeckelman.

In a moment, a hospital bed may have just been freed up for you, but first, ready to march right into some great activities around the cities if you wanna go out and about.

Here's Lora Adams.

(upbeat music) - [Lora] This is Out and About from March 11th through 17th.

St. Patrick's Day events include The Gathering of the Clan Luncheon at the RiverCenter, March 11th.

The Grand Parade begins in Rock Island and ends in Davenport at 11:30 plus a Post Parade Bash at the RiverCenter at 1:00.

The Bettendorf VFW host a corn beef and cabbage meal on the 17th from 3:00 to 7:00 and Wallenberg Hall is the site for a St. Patrick's Day Concert the 15th at 7:30.

Or join the Gathering of the Green-Plow City Tractor Show at the Mississippi Valley Fair grounds the 16th through the 18th.

For music, enjoy the NOLA Jazz Band at River Music Experience the 12th at 7:00 and Fox Royale perform at Crawford Brew Works the 12th at 8:00.

The Figge Art Museum screens "Love It Was Not", the first movie in the holocaust film series the 13th at 4:00.

Or check out the fun at the Missouri Valley Women's Basketball Tournament at the TaxSlayer Center through the 13th.

On stage, the comedy "The Play That Goes Wrong" finishes their run at Circa '21, "The 39 Steps", a mix of "Hitchcock" and "Monty Python", perform at Brunner Theatre the 10th through the 12th.

Or catch the dramady, "The Revolutionists" at The Black Box Theatre closing on the 13th while "Tomfoolery On Tremont" at The Renwick Mansion features comedy by Nick Youssef the 13th at 8:00.

For more information, visit wqpt.org.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music stops) - Thank you, Lora.

It's over.

Well, we've thought that before.

As we enter spring, there's a hope that the COVID surge due to the Omicron variant is now in our rear view mirror, but last spring, we went through the Delta variant thinking that it may be close to being over as well, and look what happened in the months since.

So how are hospitals dealing with this breather, which could be a game changer in the fight against COVID?

We talk with the chief medical director of Genesis Health System, Dr. Kurt Andersen.

So Dr. Andersen, what is it like in the hospitals right now?

I mean, you've seen the worst of it, I would assume, and hope the worst doesn't come back.

- Yeah, we've definitely seen a significant improvement in our COVID patient population.

We are in a much better place.

We're really returning back to the levels that we were in last summer.

- You were talking about your COVID patient count.

What about the other patients?

Does that now increase?

- We do expect that there will be some patients who will increase, patients who may have been delaying care, not wanting to come to the hospital when we are in the middle of a COVID surge.

Overall, I would say we're at or above our normal census this time of year in a non-COVID year.

- Now I know that elective surgery you can do anytime, but there is some types of surgery or some types of medical treatments that can be delayed.

What were we kinda looking at?

I mean, what are you seeing an increase right now?

- Some of it's preventative care, things like procedures like colonoscopies and more minor type health maintenance type of procedures, but some of it's even surgical care like a knee replacement or a hip surgery that the patient may just be living with the pain until they decided that they wanted to come to the hospital to have a surgical intervention.

So some of that care was delayed during the pandemic, we know that, that's kind of in the surgical area.

There's also medical care that was delayed, patients who may have noticed worsening of their symptoms, but they just didn't come in to see their physician or come into the hospital during that time, during the COVID surges.

- You're seeing the Omicron surge come to an end, so to speak, I know that there's always going to be some cases, of course.

Did this surge even surprise you?

Because it really did hit quick, hard, fast, and with unprecedented numbers of patients.

- I think that how quick the onset came was a bit of a surprise.

We knew it was coming, our numbers shot up very rapidly, and I think the biggest challenge was it was right as we were on our down slope from the Delta surge, so we're just starting to come down the Delta surge at the end of December and we shoot right back up with more positive cases in our community than we'd ever seen.

And that was the most surprising thing was that how many cases we saw and the fact that it came right as we were trying to recover from coming off the Delta surge.

- And you're talking about medical experts and first responders in the medical field that have already faced two years of this, now we're entering that third year.

I mean, I understand the fatigue, I can understand the frustration, but I really don't understand it as deeply as you guys do.

I mean, what is it like entering the spring of 2022?

- Yeah, no, I was talking to one of our teams today in the emergency room and it's really that we bond together as a team and we bond together to take care of our community in the worst of times, and that's how it had been for the last two years.

The concern that we have is when you kind of then come up for air, there's a lot of people who are really tired and are really burned out from their jobs, and that's why we're seeing, I think across the country, open positions for nursing and other healthcare roles that have never been seen before at this rate so- - [Jim] Well, Genesis and other medical centers are very, I mean, I wanna say that you're aggressive right now in your recruitment process, reaching into the high schools as well as making sure that there is college education.

That's pipelines years down the line though, I mean, that's gotta be somewhat worrisome.

What do you see for the immediate impact?

I know Cottage Hospital in Galesburg are closed, so you had a number of professionals that perhaps you were able to get there, but for the short term, what can you do?

- Our focus is several things, it's making sure we're telling the story of what we do at Genesis in our mission to care for our community, to try to bring more people into the healthcare profession, even the early outreach into the schools, as you mentioned, but also taking care of our own staff, trying to understand the challenges that they went through over the past two years and do everything we can to support them and to keep them as part of our healthcare team in our community.

So it's both adding and building back up our teams with new nurses, with new patient care techs, with new front office help as well as keeping our current teams happy and healthy and well, and giving them a chance to recover from what really has been a tough two years.

Lots of challenges in the last two years, high volume of patients, very sick patients, at times, personal concern that you or your family might get sick, and also, unfortunately, something we've talked about a little bit earlier in the year, a shift in attitude in some of our patients that really put our staff in verbally and at times, physically abusive situations, something that I've never seen in over 20 years in healthcare.

The amount of that that we faced in the last two years certainly has contributed to the strain on our teams.

- I mean, you have never seen a pandemic of this sort, none of us have, unless we are about 100 years old, and let's be honest, medicine during the Spanish influenza was much different than it is now.

And I hate saying new normal, but I mean, the confrontation perhaps, and the questioning of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals, I mean, is that something that you're now training your staff to better deal with?

I'm not saying that they weren't better at it before, but like you said, I hate saying this, is that the new normal?

- Yeah, I don't know, it is concerning.

For years that we have built on our healthcare knowledge, that's how we get better, that's how we evolve, that's how we improve, and the care now is vastly different than it was in the Spanish flu pandemic, but it was always built in a partnership, a trust between science and healthcare providers and the communities that we serve.

And it feels in some way that trust has been somewhat broken and fractured.

I think many, many people still do have faith in the science and trust in the providers who do all they can to try to provide the most up to date, the most valid care, but for some parts of the community, that trust has been lost and will have to be rebuilt.

I would hate to say it's the new normal that patients won't seek the advice of professionals who dedicate their lives to providing the best care possible and instead seek an alternative that it may have no benefit and may actually harm their health.

So I hope we don't fall into that pattern, but there's some work to be done to rebuild that trust and I think that the role of the media in helping us get that message out is important.

- Well, I think, in so many different ways, Americans don't like being told what to do and so when you're told you have to wear a mask or you have to get vaccinated, there's always is gonna be that pushback.

So I wonder if we... Have we plateaued, have we reached the expected limits as far as vaccinations and even booster shots are concerned and what does that do to any variants in the future?

Because you keep saying that a majority of your COVID patients are those who are unvaccinated.

- Yeah, certainly the more the virus can spread in our community and communities across United States and the world, the more likely another mutation will occur that will potentially cause a more dangerous version of the virus or more easily spread version of the virus.

So the more we can do to contain spread of the virus, the better.

Vaccination is one of those very strong tools, which is why we push that so hard.

I don't know that we're at the end of the line with that because I think that maybe some of the concern over the newness of these vaccines will go away over time as they become more accepted and more standard.

I think also some of the, maybe controversy around the vaccines will, hopefully, fall into a more normal pattern and we will get back to just following the guidance and recommendations of the healthcare providers we trust.

What we found is when we started to provide vaccinations in our clinics, many patients who may have been hesitant in the past to get a vaccine, once they had a chance to speak with their physician or their nurse practitioner or PA who's their care provider that they trust and know, and they could have a real informed discussion around the risk and benefits of a vaccination, we saw an increase uptake in the vaccination.

So I think we'll see that normalized over time and COVID vaccines, I hope, will be seen like other vaccines as very powerful tools in protecting ourselves, our families, and our community.

- At what point do you think this pandemic will become endemic and basically something that we just deal with on a day to day basis just like the cold or the flu?

- Well, there's a lot smarter people than me that are epidemiologists that are trying to answer that question for us.

I don't think we know now, but I think we know we are moving into a different phase, certainly a new variant can upset everything and send us back into a surge.

But we also have learned a lot, we have different tools than we had at the beginning of the pandemic, vaccinations, antibody infusions, now oral medications.

We understand better how to care for patients with COVID when they're sick and what interventions work and what interventions don't and so we're in a better place.

I think we're moving towards that living with COVID phase, but again, everything we can do together to prevent future surges, we should continue working on those efforts.

- The chief medical director of Genesis Health System, Dr. Kurt Andersen.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device, and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on "The Cities".

("Never Let Go" Dan Phillipson) ("Never Let Go" Dan Phillipson ends) - [Lora] Wheelan-Pressly Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

- [Male Voiceover] At IHMVCU, we've always been here for you.

You are and always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health, and we are here.

IHMVCU is a proud supporter of WQPT.