Nobody ever really knows what’s going through Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s head except for Madigan himself. So the actual purpose of two highly choreographed gun control and pension reform debates last week ordered up by Madigan weren’t completely clear to anyone.

That’s by design, of course. Madigan prefers to keep people in the dark until he’s ready to make his final move.

But I did hear one theory from a Democrat last week that made quite a bit of sense, at least for a while.