With Guidance from Washington, Illinois Democrats Delay Decisions on Governor's Future

Democrats in the Illinois legislature have moved slowly to remove disgraced governor Rod Blagojevich from office, managing to convene an impeacement panel but hearing no evidence. Meanwhile, both the Illinois Senate and House of Representatives put off votes on holding a special election to choose a replacement for President-elect Barack Obama in the United States Senate. The lack of action on the part of the legislature leaves the incredible possibility that Blagojevich, who is under indictment for, among other things, conspiring to sell an appointment to the Senate seat to the highest bidder, could still make an appointment to fill the vacancy. Such an appointment is not subject to the approval of the legislature, although the U.S. Senate could refuse to seat any appointee sent by Blagojevich.

Senate Democrats are on record opposing a special election to fill the vacant seat. After initially calling for a special election, Illinois' lone remaining U.S. Senator, Dick Durbin (D), signed on to a letter from the entire Democratic caucus to Blagojevich calling for him to step down specifically to avoid the necessity of a special election. Democrats fear that a Republican would stand a better than average chance of capturing the seat in the current scandal-charged atmosphere in Illinois, and want to guarantee a Democrat keeps the seat through an appointment by Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn (D). Illinois Democrats in the legislature have apparently gotten the message from their Washington counterparts and are accordingly delayng action on Blagojevich.



For his part, the president-elect seems content to let the Illinois legislature and Seante Democrats conspire to deprive the people of Illinois of their right to select their new representative in the Senate. Barack Obama has called for Blagojevich to resign, after first saying that he would have no comment in the matter. But now that the scandal is inching ever closer to him, he has reversed course again. Obama now says that the state should decide how the replacement should be selected. Yesterday it was learned that Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is on 21 separate taped phone conversations with Blagojevich or his office, discussing the Senate replacement. Obama's transition team claims that there was no "inappropriate contact" betwen any member of the transition and the governor's office about the vacancy. Until details of those conversations are released by the U.S. Attorney investigating the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, any claims from the Obama transition team can only be judged on the accuracy of it's past statements. Thus far, both of President-elect Obama's public statements on the scandal have been contradicted by events.

The Illinois Senate Scandal is the first scandal of Barack Obama's presidency, and he is not handling it very well. His team is focusing on protecting the president-elect rather than the transparancy Obama calims to want to bring to government. And Obama is refusing to demonstrate leadership by calling on the Illinois legislature to order a special election to fill his old Senate seat. Democrats in the Senate and in Springfield are doing their best to make sure the seat stays in Democratic hands, rather than working to ensure that a democratic selection is assured by trusting the people to make the decision. The longer Illinois Democrats wait to force Blagojevich from office, the more the scandal will grow and potentialy implicate more of President-elect Obama's staff.