Back in 1955, the late Chicago alderman Mathias "Paddy" Bauler celebrated the election of Richard J. Daley as the city's mayor by dancing a jig at the bar he owned in Old Town, repeating to anyone who would listen that "Chicago ain't ready for reform." It's a quote the city's been trying to live down ever since, and this week's decision by a three-judge panel of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will make that even more difficult.
The judges ordered the release from prison of former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and the utility's erstwhile lobbyist Michael McClain, who less than three years earlier were convicted by a jury in what's become known as the "ComEd Four" trial. Federal prosecutors alleged that the defendants, who also included ex-ComEd executive John Hooker and Jay Doherty from the prominent City Club of Chicago, plotted to illegally influence then-state House Speaker Michael Madigan to support utility-friendly legislation in Springfield through the awarding of lucrative "do-nothing" consulting contracts and jobs to Madigan's friends and allies.
Even for a U.S. Attorney's office that had in recent years secured convictions against two former Illinois governors and numerous Chicago aldermen, the verdicts represented a stunning development in the effort to weed out corruption, and it preceded the conviction of Madigan himself, once thought to be an untouchable force in Illinois politics.
But in the years since those convictions were secured, the U.S. Supreme Court has narrowed the pathway for prosecutors to track down corrupt elements in government ... ironically with a case involving the former mayor of Portage, Indiana. The justices in 2024 ruled that James Snyder's acceptance of a $13,000 payment from a garbage-hauling company that had received a city contract was not a bribe because the payment came after the contract was awarded.
"If you give somebody a gratuity based on something that they did, but you didn't ask them to do it, and it wasn't a bribe to get 'em to do it, then there's no problem with corruption," said IIT Kent College of Law professor Richard Kling of the Court's rationale, which he said some lawyers and even some judges don't fully understand.
Pramaggiore and McClain were convicted of offenses in addition to bribery, but their attorneys say it's possible jurors decided to convict on the bribery count and didn't consider the other counts. The Seventh Circuit has not as of this writing spelled out its reasoning for ordering a new trial in their cases, but the decision to release both from federal custody "forthwith" suggests a potentially wide scope for their eventual ruling. Incidentally, neither of the other two defendants in the "ComEd Four" case appealed their convictions; Hooker and Doherty have both served prison time, and are now reportedly in "halfway houses."
Chicago's chief federal prosecutor Andrew Boutros now has a choice to make: whether to retry Pramaggiore and McClain under the narrower provisions spelled out by the high court, cut a deal with both defendants for guilty pleas, or wash his hands of the whole thing. Prof. Kling, who's been an important resource for our audience trying to understand the impact of legal decisions, did not hesitate when I asked whether it was possible that the government might now drop its case.
"I not only think it's possible, I think it's likely."
This, he suggested, would send a signal to politicians that the federal government was getting out of the business of prosecuting corruption cases: "This decision, I think, significantly muddies the water as to what is corruption and what is legal."
And given how brackish that water often can be to begin with, as well as the Justice Department's current focus on immigration and deportation cases as well as other priorities directed from Washington, Chicago's lead U.S. attorney may not see much upside in continuing to pursue the case. If he decides to drop it, observers could be forgiven for seeing it as a confirmation that even after 70 years, the late Ald. Bauler still isn't wrong.
