Former Representative Lou Lang takes the stand in the Mapes (Madigan) trial.

The trial of Tim Mapes, chief of staff to former Speaker of the Illinois House, has been pushed off the front pages, hopefully just momentarily.

It have been overshadowed by the fourth indictment of a former president of the United States.

Unlike the previous three Trump indictments, we may get the pleasure of seeing mug shots of the Orange Man when he turns himself in to Georgia authorities, maybe Friday.

In terms of news value, how does ordinary Illinois political corruption compare to the story of a former president attempting to overthrow the legally elected government of the United States?

Illinois is a state where four of our last 10 governors went to jail.

Nine sitting or recent members of the Illinois General Assembly have been charged with federal crimes since 2019.

30 aldermen have been convicted of corruption since 1973.

For most, another Illinois political corruption trial only brings on a yawn.

Still, the current trial of former Madigan chief of staff Tim Mapes is pretty pop-corn worthy.

Madigan had been indicted for corruption and we are waiting for his trial. But Mapes is up first.

On the stand now in the trial is former state representative Lou Lang.

I met Lang once.

Lang came to an endorsement meeting of my union’s region political action committee right after he had voted for Madigan’s bill, later found unconstitutional, that tried to steal our teacher pension.

Our region voted not to endorse anyone who voted for the pension theft bill.

That included Lang.

Lang went ape-shit when we denied him our endorsement.

“The problem is you don’t elect enough Democrats!” shouted Lang at our endorsement committee, although we had a General Assembly with a veto-proof super-majority of Democrats.

Not enough Democrats?

Lang was later forced to resign from office over sexual harassment complaints.

Madigan already had a #MeToo problem when political consultant Alaina Hampton went public with charges that Madigan’s office was a cesspool of sexual harassement.

Madigan first responded by going after Hampton, making if almost impossible for her to get clients among those he had influence over, including the Chicago Teachers Union.

I would argue that it was Alaina Hampton coming forward that started the ball rolling that eventually led to Madigan resigning from both his position of Speaker and his House seat and then the federal indictment.

At the time, Madigan calculated he didn’t need another sexual harassment issue.

With Madigan catching hell because of the Hampton’s charges, he sent Mapes over to tell Lang that he he had to go.

Neither Mapes nor Madigan are charged in the Hampton case. They settled with Hampton out of court.

The federal charges involve bribery and ComEd.

More the usual Illinois political corruption kind of thing.

Mapes is charged with perjury and attempted obstruction of justice. Mapes is accused of lying on seven occasions to a grand jury on March 31, 2021.

Michael McClain, a ComEd lobbyist and long time pal of Madigan, made a call to Lang in November 2018 saying he was speaking for Madigan. He told Lang it was time to step down after the new sexual harassment allegations surfaced.

In this latest trial, prosecutors allege that Mapes and McClain spoke four times on the phone May 30, 2018. That was the night before one of the woman accusing Lang held a news conference.

“We cannot lose him,” McClain said of Madigan. “We cannot give Illinois to these guys. So, we have to play sort of by their rules.”

“Their rules,” meaning you can’t get caught sexually harassing women.

As I follow the Mapes trial and read that Lou Lang is back on the stand I keep going back to what Lang screamed at us that afternoon at our union endorsement meeting.

“The problem is you don’t elect enough Democrats!”