The role lobbyists play in Springfield politics took center stage Thursday in the “ComEd Four” bribery trial, where the government’s star witness acknowledged on cross- examination that maintaining a good relationship with powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan was an imperative part of legal lobbying.
Fidel Marquez, a former ComEd vice president who was in charge of the company’s large government affairs team, has pleaded guilty to bribery conspiracy and is cooperating with the government.
He spent nearly 15 hours over three days testifying for the prosecutors, taking the jury through ComEd’s legislative strategy as well as the constant pressure from Michael McClain, a longtime lobbyist and Madigan’s, to do the speaker’s bidding.
On cross-examination Thursday, McClain’s attorney, Patrick Cotter, painted McClain’s role as nothing more than legal lobbying, the sort of relationship-building, arm-twisting and strategizing that’s both commonplace and necessary for a functioning democracy.
As one of the few people who had Madigan’s ear on a daily basis, McClain’s job was to keep the company in the speaker’s good graces, Cotter pointed out in his questioning.
[ ‘ComEd Four’ bribery trial: What you need to know ]
His tasks included providing insight into what Madigan might be thinking on legislation important to ComEd, and relaying any job recommendations or other requests from Madigan to the utility’s top executives so they could decide whether to follow through.
Marquez testified that McClain never explicitly said to him that he knew exactly how Madigan might vote on any particular piece of legislation.
Cotter repeatedly pointed out that legal lobbying involves asking elected officials to support issues and legislation important to a particular client.
“It wouldn’t make much sense to hire a lobbyist to not ask a public official for support right? To just go in and chat and then leave?” Cotter asked. Marquez agreed.
Cotter brought up a particular example presented by prosecutors on Wednesday, where McClain enlisted top ComEd executives — including Marquez — to take care of Madigan’s daughter’s power outage.
Prosecutors portrayed the episode as another example of ComEd working overtime to keep Madigan happy. Cotter, however, suggested McClain was just doing his job.
Would it have been good lobbying, he asked, to give Madigan the 1-800 number for customer complaints, “so (the speaker) could give it to his daughter who’s sitting in the dark somewhere?”
“No,” Marquez answered.
Marquez did qualify his views a bit when Cotter asked him whether McClain was serving ComEd’s interests when he relayed a nearly constant barrage of Madigan job recommendations and other issues to him.
“Yes but I think he was serving more Michael Madigan,” Marquez answered.
Charged in the far-reaching bribes-for-favors conspiracy case are McClain, a former legislator and lobbyist; former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore; former ComEd executive John Hooker; and Jay Doherty, a longtime ComEd lobbyist and ex-president of the City Club civic group.
The defendants are accused of steering $1.3 million in payments from ComEd to Madigan-approved subcontractors with Doherty’s consulting firm who did little or no work.
The indictment also alleged the defendants provided a slew of other favors and perks to the speaker in exchange for his influence of the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield, including hiring a clout-heavy law firm, appointing former McPier boss Juan Ochoa to the company’s board of directors, and stacking its summer internship program with candidates sent from Madigan’s 13th Ward.
The defense has argued that what prosecutors say was bribery was actually nothing more than honest, legal political lobbying, and that there was no evidence Madigan did anything to directly help ComEd in exchange for benefits that flowed to his cronies.
Attorneys for the defendants have sought to paint Marquez as an opportunist who cooperated with the government to save his own skin. They’ve also pointed out that Marquez was being coached by investigators on what to say in the conversations he recorded.
Marquez, meanwhile, is in his fourth day on the witness stand.
On Wednesday, he testified that Madigan called upon the utility to raise $450,000 at its annual fundraiser for the Illinois Democratic Party during the middle of negotiations over a massive utility bill that would pass later that year.
Marquez told the jury he was “surprised” by the size of the demand, which represented an increase of as much as $200,000 from previous fundraisers coordinated for Madigan each year by ComEd and its parent company, Exelon.
The copious amount of campaign cash was just one hoop ComEd allegedly jumped through to please the now-indicted ex-speaker, whose record run at the top of the Illinois political food chain is a central issue in the trial.
Afternoon Briefing
Daily
Chicago Tribune editors’ top story picks, delivered to your inbox each afternoon.
The jury on Wednesday saw a string of emails and other evidence detailing Madigan-backed demands for jobs and contracts for political associates, including the wife of convicted former City Clerk Jim Laski, the convicted son of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, former U.S. Rep. Morgan Murphy, and two daughters of former Cook County Democratic Chairman Joe Berrios, who doubled as county assessor.
All of the demands came through McClain, who constantly reminded everyone in his communications that he was working on behalf of “our Friend” — his code name for Madigan.
On cross-examination Wednesday afternoon, however, Marquez was asked point-blank whether he’d ever witnessed Madigan directly help pass or block legislation on ComEd’s behalf.
“In seven years, you never saw any evidence that Speaker Madigan ever did anything to help get a ComEd bill passed, right?” asked Scott Lassar, who represents Pramaggiore.
“Um, I disagree with that,” Marquez said.
But he later acknowledged that there was “no guarantee” that Madigan was going to help pass ComEd bills and that the company was constantly being worked over by the speaker’s staff for concessions on major bills.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
