In the final days of the spring 2018 legislative session, then-Illinois state Rep. Avery Bourne had a lobbyist approach her with a slightly cryptic request to add an amendment to the otherwise ordinary land transfer bill she was sponsoring.
The amendment would have included the transfer of a state-owned parcel of land in Chinatown to the city, so it could be developed into a mixed-use high-rise. After being handed the draft language, Bourne, a downstate Republican, scribbled some notes, including “Have you spoken to the department?” and “What is the story on this?”
It turns out the story was much more convoluted than Bourne could have possibly predicted.
Prosecutors say the transfer was part of an elaborate scheme orchestrated by then-House Speaker Michael Madigan to manipulate the legislative process in order to win tax appeal business for his private law firm from the developers of the Chinatown project.
The alleged scheme is a key prong of the sweeping racketeering charges against Madigan and his longtime confidant, Michael McClain, alleging they used the power of Madigan’s position as House speaker and chair of the state Democratic Party for private gain.
Bourne, who left the legislature last year, was the latest to testify in Madigan’s ongoing corruption trial about the effort to get the land transferred, which eventually was caught up in a long and frustrating old-school political battle of bruised egos. The months of scrambling and legislative maneuvering eventually went nowhere.
Bourne, however, was aware only of a tiny sliver of it. She testified that after lobbyist Ryan McCreery, who was working on behalf of mega-lobbyist Nancy Kimme, brought her the Chinatown language, she called the Illinois Department of Transportation, which owned the parcel, and found out they were opposed to the transfer.
Bourne told the jury her sense was that “IDOT is the expert” and she “wasn’t comfortable if they weren’t comfortable with it.” She also said she thought “the process and the timing of this and having it rushed at the end of session” was problematic.
On the last day of session, McCreery texted Bourne that if she added the Chinatown language, “the speaker would call and support” the legislation.
Bourne said she understood that to mean that if she did not include the Chinatown amendment, her routine land-transfer bill would have no chance of passing.
“It was my perspective that the bill would be dead without their amendment,” she told jurors. Still, she texted McCreery, she would not be supporting the amendment if IDOT was opposed.
Another Republican lobbyist, Aaron Winters, also texted Bourne on the last day of session about an alternate move for Kimme’s land transfer proposal. The exchange, which the jury was shown during Bourne’s testimony, made it clear that neither of them knew the backstory of why it was being proposed in the first place.
“Whomever her crazy client is would be happy if an amendment was filed and not moved,” Winters wrote. “Is filing and not doing anything with it possible? …This isn’t my client so your answer won’t hurt my feelings.”
Bourne testified she agreed to file the amendment so it was public record, and then table it so it never came to a vote, which is a fairly common parliamentary procedure in Springfield.
But the issue returned months later in the veto session, when Bourne had another text exchange with then-state Rep. James Durkin, the Republican minority leader, who asked her to transfer the land bill to Rep. Dan Burke, a lame-duck Democrat. Again, Bourne responded negatively.
“If you think that’s the right thing, then yes,” Bourne wrote back to Durkin. “But I’m not comfortable with it so I will most likely not support the bill.”
Bourne said the bill was never transferred to Burke and it wound up passing without the Chinatown amendment.
The jury has already heard a wiretapped phone call where Burke complained to McClain that he was getting pushback from state Rep. Theresa Mah, whose district includes Chinatown, about the proposal, and that picking up the legislation seemed far more complicated then first described.
“Let me talk to Nancy and find out what the hell’s going on here before you get yourself in a buzzsaw,” McClain said on that call.
Bourne testified on cross-examination that she was confronted on the House floor during veto session by Mah, who was “very upset” because she mistakenly thought the Chinatown amendment was in the bill.
Was the confrontation aggressive? Madigan attorney Tom Breen asked.
“It was loud but not aggressive,” Bourne replied.
Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise.
He is charged alongside his longtime McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy. Both men have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com