Good News Out of Illinois
ArchPundit
Well, sort of bad news—
Arne Duncan is going to head the Department of Education.
The bad news you ask? Poor guy has to try and fix NCLB and Chicago loses a tremendous leader for the CPS.
2008
And Rod Sends the State to the Brink
The state’s mounting backlog of bills has reached $4.5 billion, and suppliers soon may cut off services if they aren’t paid, Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes said Friday.
Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias expects to receive proposed changes in the bond offering’s legal language from Attorney General Lisa Madigan later Monday, said Sara Wojcicki, a spokeswoman for the treasurer’s office.
On Thursday, the date originally scheduled for the bond sale, Ms. Madigan’s office said the attorney general was reviewing a clause in the note agreement that addresses legal controversies concerning Mr. Blagojevich and his ability to hold office. The sale could not proceed without Ms. Madigan’s approval.
Ms. Wojcicki said Monday that providers of state services, especially health-care facilities such as nursing homes and institutions that care for the disabled, have been continually calling the treasurer’s office since Friday to express concern that the bond sale might not go through. The state hasn’t paid many of the facilities since May or June, and they fear that if they don’t get paid by the end of the year, they will have to close in January, she said.
Until he is out of office, everything is more complicated and the state faced a financial crisis before this.
My Lungs are Contemplating
Leaving my body through the oral cavity so if you are e-mailing me or expecting an e-mail, it’s a bit delayed.
One Month Estimate By Quinn
Obviously impeachment is a delicate matter for the legislative branch and I think Quinn should be cautious on this issue, but one month is more than enough time when we have situation like this present.
Via Rich
And those who think he might step down? Sure, it could happen because none of us know the inner ‘workings’ of Rod Blagojevich’s mind. However, it’s always worked well to choose the most preposterous course of action and assume he’ll do that. You’ll be wrong some of the time, but not most of the time.
And Your Bad Timing Award Goes To
George Ryan. What is he thinking?
Sociopath
In 1996, John Fritchey, a Democrat who shared a campaign office with Mr. Blagojevich, was told that his stepfather had suffered a serious stroke. He walked over to Mr. Blagojevich, who was making fund-raising calls, and shared the news.
“He proceeded to tell me that he was sorry, and then, in the next breath, he asked me if I could talk to my family about contributing money to his campaign,” recalled Mr. Fritchey, now a state representative and a critic of the governor. “To do that, and in such a nonchalant manner, didn’t strike me as something a normal person would do.”
Deep Thought
Because nobody has seemed to say it yet.
Is he rocking the system or what?
McCarron on Blagojevich
Consider two paragraphs from a column I wrote in 2002:
“After winning his congressional seat in 1996, Blagojevich needed an issue hot enough to burn though the obscurity that envelops freshmen of the minority party. As fast as you could say ‘napalm,’ Blagojevich staged a press conference on an overpass above a South Side rail yard, where he warned that the U.S. Navy was about to ship surplus quantities of the jellied gasoline through Chicago to an Indiana disposal company.
“You would have thought the stuff was unshielded plutonium, not a compound so stable it has to be simultaneously sprayed and ignited to do its ghastly thing. Cooler heads pointed out that far more dangerous substances traverse Chicago daily by rail and semitrailer. But never mind. The Navy canceled the shipments, and Blago looked like a hero.”
The guy went on to pull phony stunt after phony stunt. There was his “no-new-taxes” pledge as the state budget plunged deeper into the red; his nonsense declarations about selling off state office buildings and the state lottery; his loudly declared, but largely unfunded, new health-insurance programs and day-care services for kids; and, of course, his free CTA rides for seniors. Whoopee!
Napalm is safer to transport than gasoline–it’s jellied gasoline so if it does spill, it is far more contained. This was the first big public event to suggest Rod wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. That said, many thought if he surrounded himself with reasonably intelligent folks, he’d be fine. We’ve seen how that works out nationally and locally though give it to Bush, he’s not as dumb as Blagojevich.
How This Is Different
We are in a situation where we are leaving state government business in the hands of a man who has caught on tape talking about extorting the Tribune and a hospital for donations to receive state benefits. This isn’t a case of an event in the past, but ongoing efforts to provide bribes for personal benefit. The Senate seat is an issue, but frankly it’s a far weaker case.
There is an immediate reason to impeach and convict the man because he is in a desperate position and may well continue to auction off state benefits. Hell, he’s even showing up to work every day now–who knows what kind of damage he can do with a full day on his hands.
The response by the Lege is similar to a response one would have with a specific incident that may be impeachable, but is not imminent. In this particular case, further damages to the State of Illinois are very real possibilities.
Impeachment is Political Not Legal
The most frustrating thing about the entire discussion over whether Blagojevich can be impeached is the mistaken notion by many that impeachment has some legal standards attached to it like criminial law. However, the very document giving the power of impeachment to the Legislature points out that impeachment cannot punish anyone beyond removal from office and barring someone from office in the future. That’s it.
Other than that, the requirements are just as President Ford said,
“The only honest answer is that an impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers to be at a given moment in history; conviction results from whatever offense or offenses two-thirds of the other body [the Senate] considers to be sufficiently serious to require removal of the accused from office.”
And the Illinois language is looser than the federal language.
To fully understand the idea of impeachment, one has to understand the Constitution in it’s original form. Vice-Presidents weren’t elected with the President as a team, they were the runner-up essentially to the winner. Thus, impeachment was a far more political process to the founders. As Vasyl pointed out the other day:
There’s an additional factor to consider. Historically, impeachment was used by Parliament as a way to curb the abuses of the king’s appointed officials. The entire idea was that abuses of power should be curbed by a body not accountable to the king, but also one that is not hamstrung in its ability to curb abuse by the niceties of criminal law.
In this case, we have a public official who is clearly ready to abuse his power in a very vile manner — if the tapes are accurate and not wildly out of context, Blagojevich was ready to sell the office of US Senator. The legislature has the duty, I would argue, to step in and stop this abuse of power from happening. That means, as Archpundit has argued in several posts, that they must put speed above all. Every moment they delay, they risk the Governor abusing his appointment power.
Blagojevich will get all the due process to which he is entitled during the criminal trial. But we the people need protection now, even if that means that Blagojevich loses his job. Impeach him, and do it now.
The Lege can finish this up by tomorrow if they want. If they want to be deliberative, take the whole week. But get it done.