{"id":299909,"date":"2010-02-09T16:24:22","date_gmt":"2010-02-09T21:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c60fd53ef0120a87f2261970b"},"modified":"2010-02-09T16:24:22","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T21:24:22","slug":"madigan-says-hes-gathering-names-to-replace-cohen-but-has-no-favorite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/299909","title":{"rendered":"Madigan says he’s gathering names to replace Cohen but has no favorite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Michelle Manchir<\/em> at 3:24 p.m.
<\/br>\u00a0
<\/br>SPRINGFIELD — House Speaker Michael Madigan said today he is gathering names of potential lieutenant governor candidates to replace scandal-plagued primary winner Scott Lee Cohen but does not have a choice of his own.
<\/br>
<\/br>"I’ve committed to no one," said Madigan, who doubles as the state Democratic Party chairman, at the Capitol today.
<\/br>
<\/br>Madigan said he will review potential candidates with Gov. Pat Quinn, and Senate President John Cullerton before making a recommendation to the Democratic State Central Committee. Madigan said the panel can’t meet to discuss the issue until after the Illinois State Board of Elections certifies the election results. March 5 is the deadline for elections officials to do so.<\/p>\n

Cohen’s candidacy quickly fell apart in the days following his election last week after police and court records came to light in which he was accused of abusing women, using illegal steroids and failing to pay $54,000 in child support even as he spent more than $2 million on his campaign.<\/p>\n

Madigan spoke privately to Cohen on Friday and said he recommended the newly minted lieutenant governor nominee drop out.<\/p>\n

"I told him I would not give him political advice. I would only give him personal advice," Madigan said. "And the personal advice was that the anguish he was experiencing at the time would not get better, would probably get worse."
<\/br><\/p>\n

Cohen announced on Sunday night at halftime of the Super Bowl that he would resign.<\/p>\n

Madigan was asked about the prospect of installing Iraq military veteran and Obama administration appointee Tammy Duckworth as the lieutenant governor replacement. Sources told the Tribune Monday that Quinn has discussed the Duckworth possibility with top Democrats.<\/p>\n

"She’s certainly got an outstanding record in government," Madigan said, without elaborating.
<\/br>
<\/br>Madigan said he thinks Quinn will win in November in a "close election" against likely Republican nominee Bill Brady, a state senator from Bloomington who is only about 400 votes ahead of rival Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale. Dillard has not conceded.
<\/br><\/p>\n

Providing a bit of political analysis about last week’s governor primary, Madigansaid the "mistake made" by the Illinois Department of Corrections to allow some prisoners out early hurt Quinn and helped Comptroller Dan Hynes, who barely lost his bid to Quinn to be the Democratic governor nominee.<\/p>\n

"I’m rather surprised that there hasn’t been some dismissals over at the Department of Corrections," Madigan said. "That’s what I would recommend."<\/p>\n

Quinn blamed his corrections chief, Michael Randle, but did not fire him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted by Michelle Manchir at 3:24 p.m.\u00a0SPRINGFIELD — House Speaker Michael Madigan said today he is gathering names of potential lieutenant governor candidates to replace scandal-plagued primary winner Scott Lee Cohen but does not have a choice of his own."I’ve committed to no one," said Madigan, who doubles as the state Democratic Party chairman, at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3992,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3992"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}