WEEKLY STANDARD
The Democratic Machine Still Churns in Illinois
by Dennis Byrne
November 22, 2016

While half of American voters have stomped through the Garden of Progressive Delights, Illinois is ever more shackled by insider deal-making, special interests of the liberal kind, and an autocratic Democratic machine. Case in point: As if organized labor hasn’t wrung enough out of the nearly broke state, its largest and most radical public employee union is threatening a strike over demands that would add billions to Illinois’s red ink. It’s as if Illinois, which gave President-elect Donald Trump a landside thrashing, was a country unto itself…Untouched, of course, was the autocratic and ultimate insider, Democratic representative Michael Madigan, who has been State House speaker for 28 years and the man most responsible for Illinois’s dismal finances. READ MORE

Michael Madigan became speaker of the Illinois House in 1983. It’s time for him to go.