SPRINGFIELD, Ill., Jan. 9, 2009
Blagojevich Unfazed By Impeachment
Illinois Gov. Accuses House Of Impeaching Him Because Of Health Care Initiatives, "Confident" He Will Be Exonerated
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Play CBS Video Video Blagojevich Impeached In a 144-1 vote, the Illinois House has impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich over his alleged role in the selling of President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat. Kelly Wallace reports.
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Video Senate Showdowns The 2009 Senate has holes in it; the race in Minnesota is going to the courts, and the Senate refused to seat the Blagojevich appointee Roland Burris. Wyatt Andrews reports.
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Video Burris Hits Capitol Hill Roland Burris, appointed by Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich, may be excluded in today's U.S. Senate swearing in. Maggie Rodriguez talks to Burris about the validity of his appointment.
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Gov. Rod Blagojevich holds a news conference after an Illinois House panel voted unanimously to impeach him, Jan. 9, 2009. (CBS)
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Photo Essay Rod Blagojevich The downfall of Illinois' governor, in hot water over allegations he schemed to profit from his power.
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Interactive Political Scandals Politics can be a strange and dirty business. Check out some of the biggest missteps and mishaps in recent history.
The 114-1 vote in the Illinois House came exactly a month after Blagojevich's arrest on charges that included trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat. The debate took less than 90 minutes, and not a single legislator rose in defense of the governor, who was jogging in the snow in Chicago.
Later, a defiant Blagojevich insisted again that he committed no crime, and declared: "I'm going to fight every step of the way."
CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports that Blagojevich portrayed himself as a champion of the downtrodden caught in a power struggle with the legislature - sounding almost like a man running for a third term.
"The things we did for people have literally saved lives. I don't think those are impeachable offenses," Blagojevich said.
He said he was a victim of political payback by the House for his efforts to extend health care and other relief to the ordinary people of Illinois.
"The causes of the impeachment are because I've done things to fight for families," the 52-year-old Democrat said at an extraordinary news conference where he surrounded himself with some of the people he claimed to have helped, including a man in a wheelchair and a transplant recipient. He took no questions.
Blagojevich becomes the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be impeached. Arizona's Evan Mecham was impeached, convicted and removed from office in 1988 for trying to thwart an investigation into a death threat allegedly made by an aide.
No other Illinois governor has ever been impeached, despite the state's storied history of graft. Blagojevich's immediate predecessor, George Ryan, is behind bars for corruption, and two earlier governors also went to prison.
The Senate trial is set to begin Jan. 26. While impeachment in the House required only a simple majority, or 60 votes, a two-thirds vote would be needed for conviction in the 59-member Senate.
During the House debate, lawmakers complained that Blagojevich had made a laughingstock out of the state.
"It's our duty to clean up the mess and stop the freak show that's become Illinois government," said Democratic Rep. Jack Franks.
Rep. Monique Davis, a Democrat, said: "If the governor walked down that aisle today, how many of us would fall over ourselves to greet him? I think we'd hold our heads down in shame. We wanted him, we elected him, we supported him and he's disgraced us."
The criminal case against the governor included charges he tried to sell the Senate seat for campaign cash or a plum for himself or his wife, and pressured people into making campaign contributions.
The impeachment case was based on the criminal charges plus other allegations - that Blagojevich expanded a health care program without authority, that he circumvented hiring laws to give jobs to political allies, that he spent millions on flu vaccine that he knew couldn't be brought into the country.
Blagojevich did not testify before the House impeachment committee and has not offered an explanation for the criminal charges.
"His silence in this grave matter is deafening," said House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat.
Rep. Elga Jefferies voted "present." Rep. Milton Patterson, also a Chicago Democrat, voted against impeachment. Patterson said later that he was not defending anyone, but that he read the impeachment committee's report and wasn't comfortable voting against the governor.
"I went by my own gut feeling; it's as simple as that," he said. "If the government is going to indict him, let them go ahead and do that. That's their job, and I'm doing my job."
After returning from his jog, Blagojevich said his situation reminded him of the short story "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner," about a petty criminal who takes up running. "And that's what this is, by the way, a long-distance run," he said.
Later, at the news conference, Blagojevich portrayed the impeachment vote as another round in a long struggle with the House, which he said had repeatedly thwarted his efforts to help real people instead of "special interests and lobbyists."
He ended the news conference by reciting a few lines from the poem "Ulysses" by Lord Alfred Tennyson, ending with: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
"When you saw him stand up there and reciting that Tennyson poem, you began to wonder if maybe he was going to lay the ground work for pleading insanity in this case," said CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. "But this is some serious business here and now that it looks like he's going to be removed and after you saw that vote, it's almost certain that he will be."
After his arrest, Blagojevich defied practically the entire political establishment by appointing someone to the Senate, former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. That provoked a furor as state and federal officials struggled over whether to seat Burris.
On Friday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Burris' paperwork was valid and that Illinois' secretary of state did not have to sign his appointment. But that may not be sufficient for Burris to take his seat: Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the Senate will not accept Burris without the signature.
"(Democrats) don't think this person, any person that Blagojevich would appoint, to be a strong candidate in two years," Schieffer said.
The Illinois Senate is working to draft rules for the impeachment trial. The state constitution does not specify what is an impeachable offense and does not lay out a standard for conviction, other than that senators must "do justice according to law." The chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court will preside.
© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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See all 147 CommentsI have a low low opinion of our representitives. As long as our government lets lobbyists flow freely and buy their votes the representitives on either side will continue to work against the public. I decided after several elections ago to vote the flush every election. I have high hopes for our new president but feel he will be walking into a stone wall with the representitives there. he doesn''t have a chance to do anything for the us public as long as the checks and ballance system stays the way it is.
Posted by libra217 at 01:19 PM : Jan 10, 2009
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Yeah, he''s off to such a good start that his own party is turning on his economic recovery plan...
Posted by spinproof at 01:02 AM : Jan 10, 2009
Well then, quit trying to tie the Blago scandal to Obama when there is absolutely no evidence or indication whatsoever that he was involved in any way.
Let Illinois take care of the Blago problem and let Obama get on with taking care of our national problems. He''s off to a good start, even though he hasn''''t even taken office yet.
Posted by libra217 at 01:19 PM : Jan 10, 2009
Just because you support someone or a Political Party does not mean you agree with and support everything they say or do, does not mean that they get a "blank check" of support like Israel thinks it has with the U.S. for example. There is no way Pres.-elect Obama can distance himself from Illinois Politics, but what he can do is distance himself from corrupt Illinois political practices like Pay-To-Play for example. Pres.-elect Obama and his staff don''t look credible when they say things like they don''t know Gov. Rod Blagojevich, never spoke to the guy in my life, who is he anyway? LOL All because Blago is in trouble no one ever met him before, its just not believable since they all are from Illinois if you know what I mean. Pres.-elect Obama is tied to Illinois whether he wants to be or not, I don''t need to tie him there.
Posted by spinproof at 01:02 AM : Jan 10, 2009
Well then, quit trying to tie the Blago scandal to Obama when there is absolutely no evidence or indication whatsoever that he was involved in any way.
Let Illinois take care of the Blago problem and let Obama get on with taking care of our national problems. He''s off to a good start, even though he hasn''t even taken office yet.
''Blagojevich Unfazed By Body Cavity Search''
Five Shot At Chicago High School
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Emergency workers respond to a shooting outside Dunbar High School late Friday Jan. 9, 2009.
Chicago police say they believe a shooting Friday night at a South Side high school that sent at least five male victims to the hospital was gang-related.
Police say the shots came from a vehicle that pulled up outside the building as a basketball game was getting out. Chicago police superintendent Jody Weis called the shootings at Paul Laurence Dunbar Vocational Career Academy "a tragedy."
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The man has no shame. Period.
Pelosi for Prez 4012
And then there''s the FACT that Bill Clinton WAS impeached and George W. Bush WAS NOT impeached. And Nancy Pelosi "took impeachment off the table", for which I''m not sure she "declared" how long it has been taken off the table.
I can only assume, since she is doing this in defiance of due process clauses in the U.S. Constitution, that this is not something granted by her to one President, but an actual "rule" that is in place regardless of who is in office.
My guess is that Nancy Pelosi''s declaration that impeachment is "off the table" does not apply to the states, although the tremendous power she wields outside of the U.S. Constitution is not clear.
This "rule" is also apparently flexible enough to work around the fact that states ACTUALLY HAVE DIFFERENT LAWS regarding how they appoint replacement Senators. Some are required by that state''s laws to go through another election, and other''s don''t have any stipulation for getting the state''s secretary to sign off on the new appointment or elected replacement.
This COMPLETELY contrary to some U.S. Senator who could give a $HIT about the LAW and instead make up what appears to be LIES about apparent "rules" that can''t possibly be consistent and/or exist.
This is the current state of the union. REALLY ****** since Reagan, and definitely since Bush the Decider. The rule of law is very much secondary to the will of the empowered individual -- particulary if this individual is a psychopath with complete immunity.
Well, I guess that pretty much without any doubt whatsoever backs up Blagojevich''s general claim that this impeachment is political.
Unless someone knows why other governors who where charged, found guilty and sentenced for crimes did not face impeachment. I mean I''m not suggesting that you necessarily need to have committed a crime, been indicted and subsequently found guilty to be impeached, but I am suggesting that NOT impeaching these individuals MUST RAISE the bar for what is impeachable, at least by due process and equal protection under the law clauses.
Anybody?
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