High-Ranking Democrats Call For Madigan To Step Aside As State Party Chair

By Dave McKinney, Tony Arnold

Thursday, Nov. 5, 5:07 p.m. CTUpdated 7:28 p.m. CT

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth called on Michael Madigan to relinquish his chairmanship of the state Democratic Party Thursday, joining Illinois’ senior senator in blaming the embattled House speaker for a series of jolting election-day losses by Democrats.

But the speaker immediately made clear that even though Pritzker, Duckworth and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin – all top members of his party – publicly questioned his continued role as party chairman, Madigan has no plans to give up power.

Pritzker and Duckworth’s statements came after Durbin appeared on WTTW-TV’s “Chicago Tonight” and said Democratic candidates across the state “paid a heavy price” for the speaker’s chairmanship and that “his presence as chairman of our party has not helped.”

Durbin said it is “disconcerting” to see so many Democratic defeats on election day, though the No. 2 Democrat in the U.S. Senate stopped short of outright calling on the speaker to step down as party chairman.

“Candidates who had little or no connection with him whatsoever were being tarred as Madigan allies who are behind corruption and so forth and so on. It was really disconcerting to see the price that we paid on that. I hope he takes that to heart and understands that his presence as chairman of our party has not helped,” Durbin said.

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https://www.wbez.org/stories/governor-jb-pritzker-and-sen-dick-durbin-question-michael-madigans-leadership-of-state-democrats/4b843f20-6bde-48db-a731-bba0019b07d3