his law firm is a racket:

"The game

The property-tax-assessment process in Cook County is convoluted by design. But here’s how it works in simple terms:

First, the Cook County Assessor’s Office assesses the value of every property in the county. The value of any given property is reassessed once every three years. This “assessed value” is then used to calculate the property taxes owed by each property owner.

Property owners can then appeal that assessed value in a number of ways. They can file a request with the assessor asking for a reduction, appeal the valuation to the Cook County Board of Review, file a lawsuit in which a judge will decide the value, or the property owner and the Cook County State’s Attorney will enter into a settlement agreement over the value.

Flawed property valuations and the process required to fix them are a cash cow for law firms, including those of Madigan, Burke and Cullerton, which know what strings to pull. These law firms handle the ways in which the assessed value of a property is appealed: the request with the assessor, the appeal to the Cook County Board of Review, and lawsuits.

The Cook County Board of Review – which exists solely to field appeals for assessments by the Cook County Assessor’s Office – processed appeals for more than 400,000 properties in 2013.

What doesn’t add up is nearly two-thirds of those appeals were successful: an astonishing number that reveals a faulty assessment process ripe for savvy attorneys.

Any way you slice it, taxpayers lose.

Choose not to appeal your assessment and the government pockets the extra money. Choose to hire a politically connected law firm and that law firm typically pockets anywhere from 25 to 50 percent of the “winnings.” And each reduction for a politically connected business means an increase in property taxes for those lacking the right political connections.

Investigative reporting from the Illinois News Network revealed Madigan’s six-person firm, Madigan & Getzendanner, earned close to $10 million in tax refunds for its clients from April 2013 through April 2014. Madigan’s spokesperson Steve Brown has said that the House speakers’ law firm, which services mainly commercial clients, charges a flat fee for its services. The Chicago Sun-Times’ Tim Novak broke the story in 2014 that Madigan’s firm had saved Mesirow Financial Services $1.7 million dollars by slashing the valuation of its River North headquarters by 60 percent. Mesirow manages $300 million in state pension funds and employs Madigan’s son, Andrew.

Every year from 2010 to 2014, Cook County Assessor and Democratic Party Chairman Joseph Berrios declared the building that housed Mesirow was worth at least $330 million. In each of those years, Madigan’s law firm successfully contested that valuation to the tune of $5 million in tax breaks annually, according to Novak’s research.

That’s the game in a nutshell."

https://www.illinoispolicy.org/meet-the-politicians-getting-rich-off-chicagos-property-tax-scheme/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3402290&forum_id=2#37069440)

madigan gets that dem kicked out of office by bringing barack obama to the district to campaign against him. he's probably got all kinds of shit on obama.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3402290&forum_id=2#37069451)

In the summer of 2013, it was reported that Madigan had sought to use his influence to secure patronage hiring and promotion at the Metra commuter rail agency for two of his supporters.[29][30] Metra CEO Alex Clifford rejected these requests, and alleges that the agency's board sought his resignation as a result.

In the wake of this scandal five Metra board members resigned,[31] but Madigan denied violating any ethics rules.[32] An investigation by the Legislative Inspector General found that Madigan "should have realized, given his influential position, that by making the [personnel] requests at the conclusion of meetings with Metra officials to discuss funding and other legislative issues, he would be creating reciprocal expectations."[33]

More than 400 current or retired state and local government employees have strong political ties to Madigan, according to a 2014 investigation by the Chicago Tribune. The former Bureau of Electricity in the Streets and Sanitation Department of the City of Chicago was called "Madigan Electric" by political insiders.[34][35] Madigan recommended at least 26 individuals for jobs at Metra from 1983 to 1991.[36]

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3402290&forum_id=2#37069674)