Veteran Statehouse Reporter Recalls When Mike Madigan Longed For Power

When reporter Kurt Erickson began covering the Illinois Statehouse, Jim Edgar was governor, George Ryan was secretary of state, Rod Blagojevich was a little-known state representative and a civil rights attorney from Chicago named Barack Obama was about to win election to his first term in the Illinois Senate.

In nearly two decades of covering Illinois government and politics for Lee Enterprises newspapers, Erickson saw a transition from an atmosphere of deal-making amid a healthy state economy to the current state of budget gridlock and partisan bickering as leaders argue over the cause of the economic malaise that's gripped Illinois since the Great Recession. He has covered five governors, including two who would go to prison on corruption charges.

House Speaker Michael Madigan has worked all year to show Gov. Bruce Rauner that he's still the most powerful person in Springfield, but that wasn't the scene when Erickson arrived at the Statehouse.

"When I came here the Republicans were in charge of the House and Senate and there was a Republican governor and Mike Madigan, I remember, would come into the sessions in the House and sit in his chair -- it was the first time he'd not been in power (as speaker of the House) ," Erickson recalls. "It seems like every day he would come in and stare at the speaker's podium longingly, wanting it back, plotting."

Madigan got the speakership back and since then has built his House Democratic majority into a veto-proof super-majority. Likewise, the state Senate has a three-fifths Democratic majority.

Erickson remembers Gov. George Ryan pulling out his campaign checkbook to write a $5,000 check on the spot for a baseball team that needed help getting to a tournament in Cuba and state Sen. Barack Obama schmoozing the Senate press box in an effort to get stories into Chicago media.

"I totally underestimated what his aspirations were and even when he was running for (U.S.) Senate the first time predicted he would lose to (then-Illinois Comptroller) Dan Hynes, which I'm sure he remembers very well," says Erickson.

Fast-forward a decade and we're in an entirely different universe politically. Rauner has done away with the conventional rules of the Illinois political game and the battle of wills between him and Madigan has left state government operating without a budget for more than five months.

As Erickson prepares to move to a similar job covering Missouri state politics in Jefferson City for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, he shares his thoughts on the past, present and future of politics in Springfield.

Hear Erickson's insights on this week's "Only in Illinois."



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