Thomas O’Neill, the former general counsel of the powerful Illinois power company CommonWealth Edison, said on Oct. 28 that his lobbying efforts targeting former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan (D ) and associates saved the company from what he said was imminent bankruptcy through rate hikes the speaker passed through energy bills that only he could carry in the Illinois House .
In exchange for political favors, O’Neill says ComEd provided lobbying payments to Madigan associates.
O’Neill’s day-long testimony described how former Illinois lawmaker and Madigan-allied lobbyist Michael McClain, who was convicted earlier this year along with three others involved in the scheme, including the former director ComEd General Anne Pramaggiore made it easier for the 2011 legislation to reach the House in exchange. for a certain number of billable hours that ComEd paid lobbyist Victor Reyes, internships for students in the Madigan neighborhood in southwest Chicago, and other political favors. McClain is back on trial with Madigan, this time for crimes not included in the previous case.
O’Neill said that when he joined the utility giant in July 2010, it was in a “precarious financial position” and desperately needed to raise customer rates or it might have had to file for bankruptcy protection. He then told jurors in federal court in Chicago how for the next six years he spent much of his time in Springfield. Ill., pushing for three separate energy bills, dealing primarily with McClain acting as Madigan’s go-between.
“Mr. McClain had free access to the speaker’s room,” O’Neill said, connecting him to Madigan and the legislation he’s pushing, as well as a contract signed by ComEd in October 2011 with Reyes Kurson, a law firm run. by Victor Reyes, another political ally of Madigan.
The contract was agreed to just as the General Assembly voted to override Gov. Pat Quinn’s veto of ComEd’s first push for a rate hike. Years later, O’Neill tried to cut the law firm’s hours as another ComEd bill was preparing to be voted on, and then-ComEd CEO Pramaggiore received a McClain’s email warning her not to.
“I’m sure you know how valuable Victor is to our friend,” McClain said in the email included in the filing. “I know the drill and so do you. If you don’t get involved and solve this 850-hour-a-year problem for his law firm, he’s going to our Friend. Our Friend is going to call me and then I’m going to call you. It’s Is this a drill we have to go through?” Prosecutors said the “Friend” was Madigan, and O’Neill testified that was his understanding as well.
The contract between Reyes Kurson and ComEd was renewed several months later, and another of ComEd’s favored power bills passed in Springfield.
Prosecutors alleged that, as a more than 40-year-old event in Springfield, Madigan’s introduction of these bills not only guaranteed their eventual passage in the Democratic-controlled Illinois House, but also in the state Senate. Madigan was also the chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party at the time and both houses were controlled by Democrats. In 2011, both chambers voted to override then-Governor Quinn’s veto of one of the bills that benefited ComEd through rate hikes.
“I was asked frequently, if not constantly: Does the speaker admit this? Or, where does the speaker stand on this?” O’Neill stated.
Madigan faces 23 counts of bribery, extortion, racketeering and wire fraud. One of the bills Madigan supported that benefited ComEd halted stricter clean energy standards and investment in the state’s energy grid because it was passed instead of a stronger bill he supported, in at the time, by Madigan’s own daughter, former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. (D).
“We have … we have to kill him. Period,” McClain told Pramaggiore in a May 2018 recorded call, according to an FBI affidavit filed in January 2019. Pramaggiore told others involved in the ‘scheme that was being transferred to another higher entity. position with ComEd’s parent company, Exelon, and they would be on their own once she left if the energy bill that Lisa Madigan favored had passed. ComEd settled with federal authorities and agreed to pay a $200 million fine for its role in the plan by 2020. O’Neill is cooperating with the government.
