A former ComEd executive pleaded guilty to corruption charges Tuesday, helping the feds nab their first conviction in an ongoing criminal probe into a political bribery scheme that has implicated Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Fidel Marquez also has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, which could help him avoid prison time.

A fraud and corruption expert says, with the multiple venues looking into House Speaker Michael Madigan’s involvement in a nearly 10-year-long bribery scheme that federal prosecutors unearthed, he expects there will be some kind of accountability.

After a series of Illinois statehouse Democrats were charged with unrelated federal crimes, in July federal prosecutors released a deferred prosecution agreement with ComEd where the utility agreed it took part in a nearly decade-long bribery scheme to give Madigan allies jobs in exchange for favorable legislation.

Illinois House rules dictate that the committee investigating Speaker Michael Madigan is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans — and like everything else in politics today that partisan divide pretty much ensures lots of arguing and little action.

That infighting, as well as the makeup of the House itself, could determine how much the committee is able to get done and the result of its investigation — should anything come of it at all.

A clout-heavy business group that represents the state’s largest corporations opposes Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposed graduated income tax amendment.

In a statement released today, the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club said that while it could back a graduated income tax as part of a comprehensive “shared sacrifice” solution to the state’s economic woes, it cannot do so now.

2020 has been especially unkind to Chicago.

Of course, there’s the pandemic, which claimed more than 2,700 residents’ lives.But 2020 was also unkind on the violence front, too.

In an effort to promote diverse businesses, Illinois three years ago passed a law that required companies receiving state tax breaks to report how much work they did with minority- and women-owned vendors.

But since the law went into effect, 119 companies that had more than $150 million shaved from their tax bills have not submitted any such reports, a Better Government Association examination has found. And of the 61 firms that did file the required reports, nearly three-quarters reported none of the data the law was intended to gather.

The Lake County Board on Tuesday reversed a recent decision to take away three paid holidays from some employees because of financial struggles prompted by the COVID-19 crisis.

Under the latest ruling, county workers will receive paid time off on Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving. The board also reinstated this past Labor Day as a paid holiday and will reimburse workers who took the day off and weren’t paid.