Jobs and vendor contracts for associates weren’t good enough for allies of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, according to ComEd officials. The allies wanted more.

The depth of the scheme the utility admitted to facilitating to curry favor with the longtime House speaker underscores why Republicans are pushing for more testimony from others involved in the bribery scandal.

It’s been more than two decades since the Palumbo family’s construction companies were caught up in a corruption investigation that found widespread fraud committed by two of their businesses.

The family’s late patriarch Peter Palumbo and sons Sebastian and Joseph Palumbo were convicted in a related case and sent to prison.

Ever since the threat of a federal prosecution seemed to materialize last year over the head of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the powerful Southwest Side Democrat has had little to say about it, aside from a general denial of wrongdoing.

That’s changed in the last week or so, as Madigan and his allies have begun to offer a more substantive public response to the bombshell $1.3 million bribery case against ComEd that implicated the speaker this summer. Federal prosecutors accused ComEd of arranging jobs for Madigan allies while trying to win his support for key legislation in Springfield.