Pat Nabong/Sun-Times
News of longtime House Speaker Michael Madigan’s decision to resign his state House seat percolated Thursday in the Southwest Side’s 22nd District where the powerful pol presided for half a century.
“Who hasn’t heard of Mike Madigan?” Gregory Hatchett, 55, of Country Club Hills, laughed while shopping at the Bedford Park Home Depot. “He’s just Mike. I liked him.
“But you knew something like this would happen eventually, just with the way he was with other politicians.”
Hatchett, like most others who spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times, said he only knew a handful of things about Madigan: He was connected to a recent scandal involving ComEd, he was powerful both feared and reviled and he had been a part of Illinois political life for as long as they could recall.