Madigan goes down. Teacher union collaboration isn't part of the indictment nor was attempted pension theft.

Former Illinois Speaker and Democratic Party boss Michael Madigan was indicted yesterday by the feds.

Praise must be given to political consultant Alaina Hampton who started the ball rolling when she exposed, at great personal risk, the sexual toxicity of the Speaker’s office.

Formally, the feds indicted him on charges related to corruption and ComEd.

There is no mention of pension theft in the indictment and I wouldn’t expect there to be.

There is no mention of the co-conspirators in the attempted stealing of pubic employee pensions. Those would be the leaders of the teachers’ unions.

Yet I want to make a special point of expressing how I feel about the role of my state union, the Illinois Education Association, and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and their Chicago affiliate, the Chicago Teachers Union, whose leaders have all been way too cozy with Madigan, the guy who engineered attempts at pension theft and so-called school reform designed by Stand for Children.

I broke that story, posting the Aspen Institute video (you can find it on Youtube) where Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children boasts how he got the IFT, CTU and the IEA to go along with Madigan's bill that took away bargaining rights and instituted teacher testing that teachers still live with to this day.

The Political Action Committees and dues dollars from the IEA, the IFT and the CTU filled Madigan's personal campaign fund, The Friends of Michael Madigan.

In fact, he used teacher PAC money to hire the lawyers and pay the settlement in the case of Alaina Hampton.

Hundreds of thousands of teacher PAC and membership dollars that we donated thinking it was to help elect pro-education candidates.

Only when it was clear that the suit against Madigan's pension theft was headed for the Illinois Supreme Court, did the IFT and the IEA join in. It was the Illinois Retired Teachers Association, with far less resources, that hired the lawyer who made the argument before the court facing down Lisa Madigan, the state AG and daughter of the boss.

Madigan wasn't indicted for any of this.

But he's guilty of it.

I hope this doesn't take years to get to trial. I hope for the names of those sell-out union leaders in the IFT, IEA and CTU come out.

I've waited a long time already.