* Crain’s Chicago Business reported on this story almost a month ago. Here’s the Tribune…

Nearly four years ago, legislation that aimed to help low-income electricity customers was making its way to the floor of an Illinois House chamber tightly controlled by its longtime speaker, Michael Madigan.

The bill’s main advocate: Madigan’s daughter, then-Attorney General Lisa Madigan. One of its primary opponents: Commonwealth Edison, the state’s largest electric utility.

By the time the Illinois General Assembly’s spring session was over, ComEd won — because, according to federal prosecutors, Michael Madigan paved the way.

In what may be one of the most intriguing chapters of the federal indictment filed earlier this month against ex-Speaker Madigan, prosecutors alleged he greenlighted efforts to kill his own daughter’s legislation as he pressed ComEd to give jobs to two political allies, including a coveted position on the utility’s board of directors.

“His own daughter’s legislation” is a bit much. They were occasionally at odds, even when she was in the Senate. It was nothing personal with him, just business. And maybe crooked business, if the feds are proved right.

* And ComEd still stands by its 2018 position…

Even today, ComEd said it opposed the plan “because it would have hurt customers.” The utility estimated it would have cost customers $20 million upfront to cover expenses, such as customer system modifications and training, as well as an additional $146 million annually, ComEd’s Shannon Breymaier said.

“It would have put significant restrictions on ComEd’s ability to collect utility service charges from customers who could afford to pay their bills and required costly changes to ComEd’s billing and collection systems,” Breymaier said in an email. “Those costs ultimately would have been paid by our customers, not ComEd.”

* The BGA is finally getting around to reporting on this story that happened two weeks ago…

Following a review by state bureaucracies, Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s office has lifted a freeze on funding for projects earmarked by Illinois’ now-indicted former House Speaker Michael Madigan.

The temporary freeze came after a group of nine Democratic state representatives requested it in the wake of Madigan’s 22-count indictment on corruption charges on March 2. […]

But two days after their initial letter to Pritzker the same group of lawmakers, led by State Rep. Ann Williams, D-Chicago, backtracked and asked Pritzker to unfreeze the funding after getting pushback from other lawmakers in the state’s Latino caucus. […]

In an email to the BGA on Wednesday, the governor’s top spokeswoman said the review has been completed and the governor ordered the funds released in a March 11 letter. The governor’s office also provided the memos from state agencies detailing the results of the review.

There is no indication in the documents provided to suggest the Pritzker-ordered reviews touched on the lawmakers’ initial requests to examine whether the projects were “appropriate” or whether any conflicts of interest existed.

* Neil Steinberg reviews Ray Long’s new book for the Washington Monthly…

A few chapters are set pieces, capturing the vicissitudes of Illinois politics. There is the drama of June 30, 1988, as Republican Governor Jim Thompson joins Madigan to try to fund a new ballpark for the White Sox when the team is all but on a plane to Florida. The deed had to be done before midnight, when a change in the legislature’s makeup would doom the effort. But Madigan “made time stand still”—literally. He stopped the clock at midnight so that he and Thompson could twist arms while opponents sang that “Na na na na / Na na na na / Hey, hey-ey, goodbye” song that Sox fans use to jeer opposing pitchers off the field.

The episode is so much fun, with that near-biblical stopping of the sun, that it’s possible to overlook—puff away the obfuscating fog of fandom—that government officials were bending the law to put public money into the pockets of a private business.

* Brenden Moore interviews Ray Long…

There’s a chapter on “Operation Cobra,” Madigan’s stealth plan to temporarily raise the state’s income tax in 1989. It passed the House in less than a day with only Democratic votes.

Long said that the legislative attack “caught Thompson totally surprised,” writing that it was “the biggest raw power play I ever saw Speaker Madigan pull off.”

By contrast, when lawmakers voted in 2017 to approve a Madigan-backed plan to end the state’s two-year budget impasse, Long said that Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner “knew it was coming and he couldn’t do anything about it because Madigan outmaneuvered him politically.”

The old-timers’ Operation Cobra stories often kept me awake at night wondering if I’d talked to enough people that day to ensure I didn’t get surprised like Thompson was.

…Adding… Politico…

hTe specter of former House Speaker Michael Madigan is entering the campaign on how the City Council’s ward maps will be redrawn.

In a new poll commissioned by the Latino Caucus and its supporters, respondents were informed that the Chicago United map supported by the City Council’s Rules Committee and the Black Caucus “was drafted by Michael Madigan’s lawyer.”

According to a polling memo obtained by Playbook, more than two-thirds, 69 percent, of respondents indicated “that is a convincing reason to vote against the Chicago United map.”

The memo states: “Perceptions of Madigan aren’t just negative, they are intensely negative — nearly two-thirds (64 percent) give him a strongly unfavorable rating. Negative perceptions of Madigan extend across all regions of the city and important voter subgroups like Democrats (84 percent unfavorable), Independents (85 percent unfavorable), and white voters (91 percent unfavorable).”

And just in case we didn’t get it, the memo continues, “Madigan is nearly universally disliked in Chicago.”

OK, except the Latino Caucus has a Madigan person of their own working on the remap. So, if they go there, the other side may as well and any advantage goes up in smoke.