Will County Gazette

Veteran state Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) argues the latest charges filed in the ongoing federal ComEd probe that has ensnared House Speaker Mike Madigan have already proven one thing.

“This highlights the culture of corruption we’ve long seen under Madigan,” Batinick told the Will County Gazette. “I said it time and time again. Speaker Madigan needs to go for us to have any chance of bringing real reform to Springfield.”

Batinick is hopeful federal investigators recently moving to charge former ComEd top executive Fidel Marquez with bribery and conspiracy as part of a pay-for-play scheme where payments allegedly were funneled to Madigan through several of his close associates in exchange for his support on legislation may move the needle in that direction. Marquez marks the second top company official to be hit with such charges in a scheme that many believe leads back to the state’s longest-tenured lawmaker.

Earlier this summer, federal investigators also announced the utility giant had been charged with a years-long bribery scheme where at least $1.3 million in perks were steered to Madigan associates. At the same time, Madigan’s office was served with a grand jury subpoena seeking more information about its dealings with such companies as at AT&T, Walgreens and Rush University Medical Center.

“I definitely think this brings the investigation closer to Madigan because it’s another person that hopefully will be willing to talk about what he was trying to do and how it all works,” Batinick added. “’I’ve been concerned it’s going to take something like this to really clean up Springfield.”

Batinick said he’s taking a wait-and-see attitude in terms of determining how effective he thinks a special bipartisan House committee recently convened to look into some of Madigan’s actions and access.

“I’ll be watching to see,” he said. “I think all the lawmakers assigned to that committee have a really important job.”