Today we’re doing something we’ve never done before: publishing a post that involves politics and government beyond the Park Ridge community.  Actually, it involves our entire State of Illinois.

We’re encouraging you to vote against long-time Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, Michael Madigan.

Madigan has been Speaker since 1983 – that’s right, 1983 – except for 1995-96, when Republicans briefly became the majority party in the House and that majority voted Republican Lee Daniels the Speaker.   As Speaker, Madigan effectively controls everything that goes on in the General Assembly, including what legislation comes up for a vote on the floor of the Illinois House.  That means that his fingerprints are on every piece of legislation that has passed the House during 27 of the last 29 years.

During those 27 years our state has spiraled downward from prosperity to the brink of bankruptcy.  Our pension system has become the most underfunded in the nation.  Our infrastructure has been terribly neglected.  Our bonds are approaching “junk” status.  Even our state motto, “Land of Lincoln,” has become a sad joke, with Illinois recognized as a perennial contender for the mythical national championship of public corruption – to the point where our most valuable public official for the past decade was U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

All of those dubious “achievements” have been accomplished on Madigan’s watch, with his hands on the levers of power.  And that’s why Madigan must go if we hope to ever start turning this train-wreck of a state around.

Now, we’re not naïve enough to suggest that just getting rid of Madigan will magically accomplish such a turn-around.  Madigan hasn’t tanked this state all by himself.  He has been ably assisted in his profligate and corrupt endeavors by Republican governors like “Big Jim” Thompson, “Slim Jim” Edgar, and George “No. 16627-424” Ryan.  In many respects, those three officials governed as despicably and destructively as Madigan.

But only Madigan’s tenure encompassed and survived theirs.  And only Madigan remains in Springfield today, more powerful and wily than ever.

Madigan’s name, however, won’t be on our ballots.  He’s on the ballot in another legislative district, one in which he’s been elected and re-elected since 1971 – that’s right, 1971!  He’s such a lock in that district that its voters will be trying  to cast votes for him years after his demise.

So the only way to strip Madigan of his Speaker’s power and his control over Springfield is to deprive him of the votes he needs to remain Speaker.   And the only way that can be done is by electing enough Republicans to the House that they gain a majority and vote for someone other than Madigan as Speaker.

Thanks to the 2011 Madigan/Democrat-controlled redistricting, Park Ridge was cut into parts of 3 House districts.  In the new District 15, there is no Republican candidate.  But in the new District 20, the Republican candidate is incumbent Michael McAuliffe; and in the new District 55, the Republican candidate is Park Ridge’s own Susan Sweeney.  So a vote for Democrat Bruce Randazzo in Dist. 20, or for Democrat Marty Moylan in Dist. 55, is in reality a vote to keep Madigan the Speaker, and to continue business-as-usual in Springfield.

Some voters might not want to vote for these Republican candidates because of their stances on abortion, guns, school funding, pension reform, or various other issues.  That’s all well and good if those voters truly believe that preserving abortion on demand, or further restricting gun ownership, or banning school vouchers, or preserving guaranteed defined benefit pensions and COLAs for government retirees, is more important than the state’s economic solvency.

And we hope those voters remember to tell that to their kids and grandkids when those kids and grandkids ask what their pro-choice, anti-gun, anti-voucher, pro-pension parents and grandparents did to stop Illinois from becoming the kind of place where those younger generations can’t afford to, or don’t even want to, live and raise their own families.

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