Springfield shakedown

While lobbying for nursing home reform, a member of Speaker Madigan’s staff hit me up for a donation for a candidate who was running somewhere in Illinois.

I pled poverty. I said I worked for poor people.

I can’t repeat the staffer’s response because I don’t think I would get her expletives in the proper sequence.

I didn’t think Madigan (who was sponsoring my bill) had dispatched her to shake me down, although I had heard about other situations where that had been the case.

But I couldn’t risk her reporting to him that I wouldn’t pony up. So I kicked in something.