As lawmakers return to work at the state capitol this week another scandal is brewing over a connected lobbyist and political favors. 

An email obtained by WBEZ in Chicago shows that a once-powerful lobbyist, Mike McClain, emailed the Quinn administration in 2012 seeing a favor for a state employee. The email, sent to two top aides to then-Governor Pat Quinn, is seeking leniency for a corrections worker facing disciplinary action. 

The shocking part is that McClain urges restraint in the case because the worker “has kept his mouth shut about ghost workers and rape in Champaign”. Republican House Minority Leader Jim Durkin outraged by the report.

Quinn’s staffers never replied to the email but the worker's disciplinary case was postponed. McClain is already under federal investigation and was a close confidant of Speaker of the House Mike Madigan.