Rep. Mike Smiddy (D): Madigan Has Outlived His Usefulness

Written by John Biver

For a number of years now, the Illinois Republican Party has been making Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan the focus of their attacks on our failed state government policies. Madigan has been in office since the early 1970s, and Speaker for all but two years since the early 1980s.

The Illinois Policy Institute’s Joe Tabor and Ted Dabrowski recently penned an extensive over-view of Madigan’s power as Speaker in the article, “Madigan’s rules: How Illinois gives its House speaker power to manipulate and control the legislative process.”

And now it is not just Republicans expressing concerns over those formidable powers. In this video clip, Democratic state Rep. Mike Smiddy says that Mike Madigan has “outlived his usefulness.”