Spain: “Illinois Democrats have failed to create the reforms needed to make good for their past bad behavior.”

May 2, 2023
Upon news of the four guilty verdicts on all four counts of the “ComEd Four”, State Representative Ryan Spain released the following statement:

“This verdict is an indictment of the culture of corruption which existed for decades in the Illinois House. Our laws fall far too short of our expectations for ethical behavior by Illinois politicians. Illinois Democrats have failed to create the reforms needed to make good for their past bad behavior.”

Spain, joined by House Republican Leader Tony McCombie and Floor Leader Patrick Windhorst took to the Capitol Blue Room on Tuesday evening, where Spain said the following:

“Today is a sad day for Illinois. While I am certainly glad that justice was served, today should be a reminder of the sad state of our politics in Illinois. This state has persisted for far too long under the leadership of Mike Madigan and unfortunately continues forward today.

My name is State Representative Ryan Spain. I represent the 73rd District and serve as a Deputy Leader for the Illinois House of Representatives in the Republican caucus. One of the things I have been very proud of, in the years that I have served here in the legislature is that after the deferred prosecution agreement was revealed with the Department of Justice and Commonwealth Edison, I was one of three Republican house members that called for an convened a Special Investigating Committee to examine the terrible deeds of Mike Madigan and his associates- the things that we have been seeing now play out in a federal courtroom in Chicago for the past seven weeks. We convened and launched an important investigation with substantive work asking for followup and investigation into these matters we’ve heard about in detail in the prosecution and now the guilty verdicts which have been delivered today.

What was the response from the Democratic legislators that participated in that Investigating Committee? Coverup and sweeping the facts under the rug.

Members of that Investigating Committee now serve as Speaker of the House, now serve as the Chairperson of the Democratic Party of the State of Illinois. This is embarrassing.

For too long, we have allowed the poor ethical behavior of people like Mike Madigan, his associates, and others to become the way we do business in the State of Illinois, and unfortunately, the “Madigan Way” is still the way in which our government works here in Springfield. It has to stop now.

As the Leader said, how many more indictments, how many convictions, how many people have to go to prison before Democrats in the State of Illinois get serious about rooting out the corruption in the State of Illinois that has drug our state down for far too long.

We need to examine every inch of Mike Madigan’s rules, that are still the rules of business for how the House of Representatives works, to this day, even as he is gone and out of office and we need meaningful engagement on ethics reforms that tackle many of the problems on full display at the federal courthouse.”