Illinois Republican Party

Illinois GOP rallies against 'controlling, vindictive' Madigan
6/10/2012

From the Chicago Tribune

Illinois Republicans used the state’s most powerful Democrat, House Speaker Michael Madigan, as a rally point during Saturday's party convention, blaming him for the state's ills while hailing a Downstate lawmaker’s tirade against him that became a YouTube sensation.

State Rep. Mike Bost’s videotaped, paper-throwing rant at Madigan near the end of the recently adjourned spring session got a standing ovation from delegates meeting in Tinley Park as GOP leaders tried to energize supporters heading into uphill fall elections for the General Assembly and Congress.

All of the state’s 177 legislative seats and its 18 congressional seats are on the November ballot, with politicians running in new districts drawn by the state’s controlling Democrats to favor their candidates.

With Republicans serving their 15th consecutive year as a minority in the Illinois House, and ninth year out of power in both the state Senate and governor’s mansion, the GOP hurled names like “dictator” and “tyrant” at Madigan, speaker of the House for all but two of the past 29 years and the state’s Democratic chairman.

“We are under the thumb of a controlling, vindictive, ethically challenged, self-serving leprechaun, and I mean no disrespect to leprechauns, Speaker Mike Madigan. He has spent the last 40 years in Springfield, making himself rich, trading on his position of trust,” said Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady, likening the state to a “third-world republic like Venezuela.”

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