•March 7, 2018•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

My Springfield insider friends say I am loony to think 2018 will be Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s last hurrah. Yet I think it will be. I array my arguments below; first a little history.

Democrat Mike Madigan has been representing the once-Irish Southwest Side of Chicago for half a century.

Madigan was elected a delegate to the Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1969 and then immediately moved to the state House. He has been there ever since, the last three decades as Speaker.

I served with Mike back in his early days, during my brief two terms in the House. Mike was very quiet as a young lawmaker (he still is), learning his craft in support of his patron, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley, the Boss.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.