SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – “A sad day for Illinois.”
That’s how State Representative Ryan Spain reacted to Tuesday’s guilty verdict of four former lobbyists and Commonwealth Edison employees, for being a part of a bribery scheme designed to try and push pro-utility legislation in Springfield.
Spain says the culture of corruption in state politics hasn’t gone away.
“While I’m certainly glad that justice was served, today should be a reminder on the sad state of our politics in Illinois,” said Spain (R-Peoria).
Even though he hasn’t been in office for more than a year, Spain claims former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s influence remains. But, he says he’s proud of what he and other G-O-P lawmakers have done to try and clean politics up.
“I was one of three Republican House members that called for and convened a special investigating committee to examine the terrible deeds of Mike Madigan and his associates — the things that we’ve been seeing now play out in a federal courtroom in Chicago for the last seven weeks,” said Spain.
Another lawmaker whose district touches this area — State Senator Tom Bennett of Gibson City — blames Democrats for, in his words, “blocking meaningful and strong ethics reforms from moving forward.”
“I hope these guilty verdicts will finally help create pressure to fix what has become a very broken system,” said Bennett.
