A federal judge has pulled the plug on a racketeering class action lawsuit against electrical utility ComEd, saying plaintiffs can’t prove the bribes the company allegedly paid to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan were enough to support their claims that Madigan’s actions to shepherd legislation through the Illinois General Assembly that funneled billions of dollars back to ComEd from the pockets of ComEd customers in Illinois, amounted to anything more than traditional backroom legislative politics.
And while he said the plaintiffs may be able to find strategies to actually establish the needed connections, he nonetheless denied them the opportunity to correct the identified shortcomings, as he said to allow the lawsuits to continue would put the court in the position of potentially nullifying three state laws.
The judge pointed to prior U.S. Supreme Court precedent holding that laws cannot be invalidated solely because they were passed as a result of bribes to lawmakers.
U.S. District Judge Jorge L. Alonso
| peoplepill.com
U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso issued the order on Sept. 9, dismissing the lawsuits brought by both a collection of individual plaintiffs and businesses, and a similar lawsuit from the Citizens Utility Board. The lawsuits were dismissed with prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs cannot continue their actions in federal district court, and can only now attempt to appeal, if they so choose.
Alonso has served on the federal bench in Chicago since 2014, when he was appointed by former President Barack Obama. From 2003-2014, Alonso served as an associate judge in the Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago.
The cases have been in federal court before Alonso since the summer of 2020, as federal prosecutors rolled out indictments against prominent members of Speaker Madigan’s inner circle, and against ComEd and ComEd executives.
The charges and the lawsuits that have followed center on an alleged long-running pay-for-play bribery scheme, accusing ComEd of agreeing to give patronage jobs and contracts and other favors to associates of Madigan in exchange for efforts by the then-powerful House Speaker steer legislation favorable to ComEd through the Illinois General Assembly. Those laws have allowed ComEd to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, more from rate payers than it would have before the new legislation became law.
Madigan has not been indicted. He stepped down from the House Speaker’s chair when he lost the support of the Democrats in the Illinois State House. He then resigned his legislative seat earlier this year.
In the lawsuits, the plaintiffs asserted ComEd should be forced to refund much of that money to its Illinois consumers, because the alleged bribes to Madigan and his political organization amounted to an illegal racketeering scheme.
ComEd, however, has argued the plaintiffs’ racketeering claims can’t hold up under the standards needed to enforce civil claims under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Judge Alonso agreed.
The judge agreed the plaintiffs can show that the bribes allegedly paid to Madigan and his “cronies” may have persuaded Madigan to use his influence to move the legislation forward. But that’s not enough, Alonso said.
In this case, he said, the actions plaintiffs allege Madigan took to advance the legislation amounted to nothing more than traditional legislative backroom deal making and “logrolling.”
He said the plaintiffs needed to show Madigan applied “improper” influence on his fellow state lawmakers to compel them to pass the legislation desired by ComEd.
“What plaintiffs fail to allege is what pressure was put on legislators,” Alonso wrote. “If, by pressure, plaintiffs mean logrolling, committee assignments or help with reelection, then that does not suffice.
“Plaintiffs fail to allege that Madigan put any improper pressure on those lawmakers.”
The judge also noted one of the three legislative acts at the heart of the lawsuits was signed into law by Republican former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, an arch political rival of Madigan’s.
While the plaintiffs might be able to address such questions in later filings, Alonso said he won’t give them the chance to do so.
He said the plaintiffs’ demand for potentially billions of dollars in refunds from ComEd amounts to an attempt to use lawsuits to nullify the effects of three separate state laws. Alonso said he believed such orders would not hold up under Supreme Court precedent, which rejected the premise that courts can nullify laws solely because lawmakers’ votes were earned through corruption and bribes.
“The plaintiffs want this Court to order defendants to reimburse plaintiffs for those increased rates in the form of damages on a civil claim,” Alonso said. “The State legislature giveth, and the federal court taketh away.
“The effect to plaintiffs is essentially the same as nullifying the State law, all based on the motives of the legislators. In essence, plaintiffs’ RICO claim is a collateral attack on three Illinois laws.
“… It is not possible to determine the merits of the RICO proximate cause issue without considering the motives of the legislators who voted for the bill.”
The individual and business plaintiffs in the action have been represented by attorneys Jonathan D. Selbin, of the firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, of New York; Derek W. Loeser, of Keller Rohrback, of Seattle; Matthew J. Piers, of Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, of Chicago; Laurel G. Bellows, of The Bellows Law Group, of Chicago; Gary M. Klinger, of Mason, Lietz & Klinger, of Chicago; and Michael I. Leonard, of the firm of LeonardMeyer, of Chicago.
Citizens Utility Board has been represented by attorneys Jay Edelson, Ari J. Scharg, J. Eli Wade-Scott and Michael Ovca, of Edelson P.C., of Chicago.
ComEd and related defendants have been represented by attorneys Matthew E. Price, Terrence J. Truax, Nicole A. Allen, E. Glenn Rippie, and Ali I. Alsarraf, of Jenner & Block, of Chicago and New York.