From the court sentencing file of Michael Madigan:
Letter in Support of Michael J. Madigan from Lisa Madigan
On August 20, 1976, shortly after I turned 10, my mother married Mike Madigan.
The ceremony took place in Joel and Thea Flaum’s living room with Judge Flaum presiding. From the time I was born, Joel and Thea Flaum were my mother’s closest friends and Uncle Joel and Aunt Thea to me. They were there for us everyday of my tumultuous childhood and always remained our family.
Everyone agreed that Our Family improved dramatically that day.
[Sister Nichole expands in the letter she wrote:
“At a time when many men would not marry a divorced woman, let alone a woman with a child and an aggressive and violent ex-husband, dad married my mom and adopted my sister. Dad defended them against her ex-husband’s threats, that continued after my parents married. My mom told me that if it were not for my dad, she did not believe that she or my sister would be alive. My dad is a hero to me for saving them.”]
Not only had my mother married a man who truly loved her, she had also married a man who took on total responsibility for serving as my father.
While I initially called him Mike, I soon recognized he was my father and I referred to him as such.
Mike embraced me as if I was his biological daughter.
At the time, I did not fully appreciate the role of a state representative, but I immediately recognized Mike’s picture in the copy of the State of Illinois Handbook my fifth grade history teacher handed out to me.
After I saw it, I went up to Miss Elmer’s desk and told her that Michael Madigan was my father. She told me that was not true, and I told her my mom had married him over the summer. She still doubted me.
That night, I repeated the story to my mom and Mike, and not long afterwards, he came to speak to our class and explained government to us and what a state representative did.
At the end of that school year, I started to learn a lot more about state government. Instead of going to summer camp like many kids, Mike took me to the capitol in Springfield where I worked everyday until the end of the legislative session.
That’s what I did every year after I got out of school in the spring until I graduated from high school.
Serving as an honorary page was my first “job.”
It essentially involved running errands for members of the House of Representatives. I got them coffee, lunch, and copies of bills (this was long before they had computers).
Sitting in the House chamber during session allowed me to have an up close view of the personalities, work, and ethics of many legislators, legislative staff, members of the press, and statewide elected
officials.
Almost every night, we had dinner with Representative Zeke Georgi, and I listened to him and Mike discuss the day’s issues.
What I saw and learned was inspiring and unique.
While I encountered plenty of lazy, drunk, and ethically questionable people serving in and around the legislature, the qualities I witnessed in these two were different.
They took their positions seriously.
They were hard working, helpful, ethical, and engaging.
Mike is the personification of “workhorse.”
Mike regularly worked 12 hour days.
When he was preparing for or in session in Springfield, he was the first elected official to arrive at the capitol, before or by 7 am, and usually the last to leave at night, around 7 pm.
After the regular legislative session ended in the spring or early summer, my father would go to work at one of his other two offices.
He worked at his ward office or his law office roughly the same hours as he did in his Springfield office.
Plus, he worked on the weekends. The only events that changed his Saturday schedule were watching the
Notre Dame football game (even when the team was having a bad year), taking his kids or grandkids to a baseball game, the zoo, or attending a family birthday party.
Waking up early and working seven days a week is one of Mike’s defining characteristics and a main reason for his decades of political and professional success.
I do not think I’ve ever met a person who is more disciplined and works harder than he does.
Certainly not under the dome in Springfield, Illinois.
Mike is meticulously ethical and honest and shunned many of the perks of elected office.
I can recall many times when Mike declined to accept or use everything from gifts to gratuities.
For example, legislators used to get a card that allowed them and their families free entrance to the Brookfield zoo. When we went there, however, Mike never used a free pass. Instead he paid for our admission.
I recall asking him why once, and he told me that if you can afford to pay for something, it is appropriate for you to pay just like everyone else.
In another example, Mike never wanted to purchase or use his legislative license plates. For Illinois House members the number on the official plate you could buy reflected your seniority in the chamber. So for many years, he could have had a “1” on his license plate, but that was never of interest to him,
and he did not.
For a less formal example, from time to time we would be out to eat and at the end of the meal, the waiter would not bring a check and instead tell us the meal was on the house.
Mike would never abide by that. He would politely but firmly tell the waiter, manager, or owner to give him the check so he could pay for the meal or he would not return to the restaurant.
Based on those examples, it should not be surprising that decades ago, long before Illinois enacted a gift ban, Mike adopted a policy of not accepting gifts from any registered lobbyists in order to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.
If someone tried to deliver a gift to his home or any of his offices, the delivery person was told to take it back.
Mike is also someone whose word you could trust. He is truthful.
Sometimes I liked what he said and other times not, but I knew he was being honest and would keep his word.
That was not always the case with people in and around the legislature.
Mike was always concerned about keeping a clear line between his official government duties and his private law practice. One way Mike worked to ensure that there could be no questions about ethics or conflicts of interest was to put in place strong conflict of interest procedures in both the speaker’s office and his law office.
His offices coordinated to avoid questions about conflicts arising on legislation and business matters.
To the extent there were ever questions about the legality or ethics of any practice, he sought the advice of his counsel and outside lawyers before proceeding.
These are not traits of a rulebreaker.
Mike was cautious and aware of the law and where the legal lines were.
Mike would never knowingly do anything illegal.
Mike always helped people however he could.
If you serve in public office, people are always asking you for help.
Everyday.
They come to your office, stop you at the store, on the street, in church, restaurants, parking lots, and run up or shout to you at parades.
Most of the time, they are asking for your help to get them a job.
Once I was walking out of a dressing room in the lingerie department at Macy’s and a woman who had seen me walk in thrust her resume into my hands and asked me to help her get a job.
If you’re a public official, in any branch of government, it’s expected that you will recommend people you know for job opportunities and it’s unavoidable that people you don’t know will ask for your assistance as well.
I certainly received plenty of requests and recommendations from judges to hire their clerks for positions in the Illinois Attorney General’s office.
Job referrals are endemic in the public (and also private) sector.
In fact, I still receive requests from people seeking my help to secure jobs in government.
If you don’t want to assist people, including helping them find job opportunities, then government service is not for you.
My father always helped people however he could.
That truly is the essence of public service.
Mike takes his role as father and grandfather seriously.
In spite of his 70+ hour work weeks, Mike always made time for family.
After he had been away in Springfield all week, he would take me out for pizza when he got home on Friday nights.
He did the same with my sisters and brother as they grew up.
With all of us, his primary focus was making sure we knew he loved us.
He was just as concerned that we grew up to be honest, responsible, and well educated people.
For example, when I was in high school, I often drove to school and usually had trouble finding parking nearby. When I found a spot, I would park, feed the meter, and walk several blocks to school. I didn’t go back to the car until seven to twelve hours later once school and after-school sports events were done.
By the time I returned the meter had always expired and sometimes the car had been ticketed. I’d remove the ticket from the windshield, stuff it under the floor mat on the passenger’s side, and drive home.
I never told my parents about the tickets piling up, nor did I attempt to pay them.
One day my poor parking ticket management and questionable teenage judgment caught up with me.
I don’t recall exactly how Mike found out about the dozen plus parking tickets I had accumulated on his
car, but I do recall he was angry with me and made me pay for them.
I spent most of the money I had earned the previous summer paying the fines.
In a city where people used to talk about having parking tickets “fixed,” I learned from Mike that I was expected to follow the law – either feed the parking meter or pay the parking tickets.
He has always been a scrupulous rule follower and expected the same of his children.
With my sisters and brother, when he was away in Springfield, he would get their spelling lists and call home every night to drill them.
Here is the advice he gave all of us when we went to college:
1. College is a great opportunity
2. Take advantage of it
3. Focus, don’t waste time
4. Look ahead, so prepare now
5. Exercise
We still get together for weekly dinners unless a Notre Dame football game interferes.
Mike keeps my mother alive.
My mother and Mike were both born in 1942. They both turn 83 this year.
Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic, five years ago, my mother has rarely been well enough to leave their house other than to go to see her doctors because she is extremely susceptible to infections due to a severe lung disease.
Since then she has been admitted to the hospital three times.
For this reason, she only attended the trial the first day for opening statements because it is very difficult for her to breathe and her doctors do not want her around people who she may catch a cold from.
She is able to remain in their house primarily because of the care my father provides. He shops for groceries, brings her food (as you heard during the trial), does laundry, and generally takes care of her and their house.
Michael Madigan is among the finest people to ever serve in government.
Mike has been my father for nearly 50 years.
Few people know Mike Madigan the way I do.
I grew up with him and worked adjacent to him in government.
I know the real Mike Madigan, not the grossly distorted picture the media, his political enemies, and prosecutors have painted and promoted of him over the years.
I have known many elected officials over the years. Without a doubt Mike is among the finest that has ever served Illinois.
I say with complete certainty that we need more people in public service with his values.
As I have said publicly before and am still very proud to say now, I did much better with fathers the second time around.
I learned life’s most important lessons from Mike, and I have spent my life living them and repeating them to the next generation of women, lawyers, and leaders in Illinois and across our country:
Get as much education as possible.
Be prepared to work hard.
Help others whenever you can.
Be honest and scrupulously ethical.
Mike Madigan always has done all of those things for the entire time I have known him.
I know Mike Madigan would never intentionally commit a crime.
He is the consummate rule follower.
Punishing him for trying to help people – something we are all taught to do – is the true injustice.
= = = = =
After finishing reading all the letters. I conclude that Madigan had a softer side that his characterizationas the “Velvet Hammer.”
Examples of how he used his influence to help others are contained in many of the letters.
Particularly impressive are the instances when he played the role of father figure to young men being raised by single mothers.
