How do we prevent another Madigan?
RFI ED Alisa Kaplan spoke with A.D. Quig of Crain’s Chicago Business about how to prevent another ‘Madigan Enterprise’ in Illinois: public financing for campaigns to cut off lawmakers’ reliance on the wealthiest power brokers; closing a self-funding loophole enabling legislative leaders to take in even more money than Madigan did; tightening conflict of interest rules so private firms lawmakers work for can’t benefit from legislative dealmaking; further empowering the state’s legislative inspector general to publish all reports about ethics violations and complaints, and a “real” revolving door cooling off period for former legislators.
“We have to do something to make sure this never happens again,” Kaplan told Crain’s. “Everything is connected, right? We just need to look at all of the ways that Madigan accrued power and try to figure out how we can prevent that from happening again.”
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