- With Republicans serving their 15th consecutive year as a minority in the Illinois House, and ninth year out of power in both the state Senate and governor’s mansion, the GOP hurled names like “dictator” and “tyrant” at Madigan, speaker of the House for all but two of the past 29 years and the state’s Democratic chairman.
“We are under the thumb of a controlling, vindictive, ethically challenged, self-serving leprechaun, and I mean no disrespect to leprechauns, Speaker Mike Madigan. He has spent the last 40 years in Springfield, making himself rich, trading on his position of trust,” said Illinois GOP Chairman Pat Brady, likening the state to a “third-world republic like Venezuela.”
The "leprechaun" crack makes the entire comment. We heard Daley described similarly but without all the preceding adjectives.