(AP) — Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has denied that personal friendships are driving his proposal to make the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum a separate state agency. A House committee on Monday approved the Chicago Democrat's idea to break the decade-old institution off from the Historic Preservation Agency. Madigan confirmed to reporters after the meeting that he is a friend of library and museum director Eileen Mackevich and her longtime friend Stanley Balzekas, the landlord for Madigan's state office in Chicago. Advisory board chairman Steven Beckett, a law professor at the University of Illinois, said the library and museum is hamstrung by the requirement that its decisions be approved by the Historic Preservation Agency.