(The Center Square) – With two members of the ComEd Four scheduled to be sentenced next week, Illinois Democrats and Republicans differ on the need for energy-related ethics reform.
Sentencing is scheduled next Monday, July 21, for former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore after she was convicted of conspiracy, bribery and falsifying records in connection with a scheme to bribe former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago. Ex-lobbyist and state lawmaker Michael McClain, D-Quincy, is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday, July 24.
Pramaggiore and McClain were convicted along with former ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and contract lobbyist Jay Doherty in 2023.
ComEd agreed to pay $200 million in 2020 to resolve a criminal investigation into the years-long bribery scheme. As part of a deferred prosecution agreement, ComEd admitted it arranged $1.3 million in jobs, vendor subcontracts and payments to influence Madigan.
The former speaker was sentenced last month to 7.5 years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $2.5 million after a federal jury convicted him earlier this year on 10 counts of corruption.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s candidate for lieutenant governor, former State Rep. Christian Mitchell, D-Chicago, addressed a question about ethics at a campaign stop with the governor in Chicago earlier this month.
“Listen, when we passed the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), we led with ethics. The governor said ethics was his first principle, and so we worked to make sure that how energy legislation was done, instead of being done in a conference room of our largest energy provider, was done in the light of day in large working groups. We made sure that we ended the formula rates that ended up getting a lot of people in legal trouble,” Mitchell said.
In 2018, Mitchell served as executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois under then-party chairman Madigan. He served with the former speaker in the Illinois House from 2013-2019. Madigan was a state representative from 1971-2021 and chaired the state’s Democratic Party for 23 years.
Pritzker signed CEJA into law in 2021. Among other things, the measure incentivized renewable energy development, imposed carbon dioxide emissions caps and provided for electric vehicle charging stations to be installed along highways across the state.
State Rep. Patrick Windhorst, R-Metropolis, said it was evident in this year’s legislative session that the General Assembly’s supermajority Democrats have no desire to pass meaningful ethics reform.
“The things that Mr. Mitchell pointed to in CEJA are very minor changes to our ethics laws. They do not do really anything that I think an objective observer would say is meaningful change to our ethics laws,” Windhorst told The Center Square.
The Illinois House GOP floor leader said the state’s ethics laws have been shown, time and again, to be weak.
“To me, putting ethics laws and reforms in place is about setting up guardrails so elected officials and other state employees don’t get close to illegal activity, let alone commit illegal activity,” Windhorst added.
State Rep. Paul Jacobs, R-Pomona, said he doesn’t see how CEJA would help with ethics.
“CEJA just is killing us for electricity. If we don’t produce as much as what we used to produce, you’re obviously going to have to buy it somewhere else. If we buy it somewhere else, then it’s opening up, ‘Well listen, I can get this for you if you get this for me.’ There are just too many things that would lead to unethical behavior, I think. I don’t see how Mitchell could possibly think that CEJA was going to help in ethics. I don’t understand it,” Jacobs told The Center Square.
Both Windhorst and Jacobs opposed CEJA in 2021, saying it punished Southern Illinois utility providers and their customers.
