A power struggle right out of the Old West

A power struggle right out of the Old West
BY CAROL MARIN
January 7, 2007
Copyrightby The Sun-Times


Today is high noon in Springfield. The streets will empty around the Old Capitol Building in the afternoon. Two veteran gunslingers will slowly inch their way toward one another, spurs clinking, ready for a lightning draw of the six-guns in their holsters.

Who blinks?

Not Mike "Mean Eye" Madigan. He's the speaker of the Illinois House, and this has been his town forever.

Not Emil "Don't Mess With Me, Madigan" Jones. He is president of the state Senate and has had it up to here with "Mean Eye's" insolent lack of respect.

As you read this, members of the Illinois General Assembly are arriving in Springfield for the final veto session and the inauguration of Gov. Blagojevich's second term.

For Democrats, this should be a giddy, wildly intoxicating time. They no longer just control the Illinois House, the Illinois Senate and the governor's office. After the November election, they've added yet another Democrat to their majority in the House, a whopping five more Democrats to their majority in the Senate, and with Alexi Giannoulias replacing Judy Baar Topinka as treasurer, there is now not a single, solitary Republican holding statewide office.

People, this is supposed to be a time for Democrats to party!

But they're having a shoot-out instead.

This afternoon, Madigan and Jones are expected to duke it out over the highly volatile issue of electricity rates.

As you no doubt know, the 10-year freeze on those rates has just been thawed and the meter has just begun to run on what will be a 22-26 percent rate increase for Commonwealth Edison customers in Chicago and up to 55 percent for Ameren ratepayers Downstate.

Madigan wants to restore that rate freeze for another three years and now has the votes to pass it in the House.

Jones, on the other hand, believes that ComEd and Ameren must have that rate increase to survive and to guarantee reliable service.

Jones, in concert with House Minority Leader Tom Cross (R-Oswego), supports an alternative three-year phase-in of the rate increase, something that Madigan contends holds hidden charges for consumers and gives carte blanche to the utilities.

I must confess I'm conflicted on this issue. On the one hand, like the utilities, I want my income to increase over time since the price of everything else keeps going up. I'm not opposed to big business making fair profits.

On the other hand, I am completely turned off by ComEd's disingenuous tactics. That includes the millions of dollars it has spent in those outrageous ads by CEO Frank Clark. You know, the ones where he tells us of his humble beginnings in the company's mailroom and how he's now the guy who opens the mail. The rate increase, Clark assures us, is absolutely necessary. What he doesn't address is whether his compensation for 2005 of $4 million is equally necessary and whether he needs the chauffeur-driven limousine that delivers him to television interviews. Or whether John Rowe, the chairman of Exelon, ComEd's parent company, could possibly deserve $27 million a year.

In addition, ComEd seems to think consumers are dummies, creating a fake "consumer group" called CORE, Citizens Organized for Reliable Electricity. You may have seen those commercials too. ComEd spent additional millions advertising under that phony-baloney name, arguing against the rate freeze but never mentioning that ComEd was paying for the propaganda.

So no, I don't have much patience with ComEd or Exelon. Or with the vast amount of money they give to politicians, including President Jones and the Republicans. In the last few years, Exelon's 1,394 contributions to Illinois legislators alone totaled more than $1.4 million.

Then again, I can't say that I'm all that comfortable with Speaker Madigan, either. His drive to keep electric rates frozen may look like it's about energy policy. But it's not. It is purely about politics.

This gunbattle at the Old Capitol between Madigan and Jones is deeply, deeply personal. Jones has long felt Madigan treated him like the "Invisible Man" in the power grid of Springfield, not as an equal partner.

This November Jones showed Madigan his muscle, adding five Democrats to his Senate roster, giving the president a supermajority. He's now veto-proof. And no matter what Madigan passes out of the House, including a restoration of the freeze on electric rates, Jones can make sure it never comes to a vote on his Senate floor.

Madigan, meanwhile, can guarantee that Jones' phase-in plan for electric rates is dead on arrival in the House. Don't expect "Mean Eye'' to cede anything to "Don't Mess With Me,'' or vice versa.

So, fellow citizens of Dodge, this is looking like a draw. And the only ones getting shot are you and I.