illinois

Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s pick to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate, should follow the example of former U.S. Sen. Dean Barkley of Minnesota by agreeing to serve only an abbreviated tenure. That’s the suggestion of The Nation magazine’s State of Change blog, which cites nascent impeachment efforts against the governor in [...]

President-elect Barack Obama is making good on his promise to include the opposition in his cabinet: He’ll be nominating Republican Rep. Ray LaHood as the next Secretary of Transportation. While some in the liberal blogosphere are outraged that Obama is naming a moderate Republican to the post, I’m not. I cast the first vote of my life for LaHood, a native of my hometown, Peoria, Illinois. And many others, from Central Illinois Democrats to my conservative mom, a self-described “dittohead,” are calling LaHood a solid, pragmatic choice.

Illinois Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn is calling for the resignation of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a man with whom he shared a ticket but apparently little else except antipathy. According to Quinn, the two men haven’t spoken since Aug. 2, 2007. That was the day after the I-35W bridge fell in Minneapolis, an event that did not trigger estrangement between Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Lt. Gov. Carol Molnau, who was then also Transportation Commissioner. But the distant relationship between Blagojevich and his second-in-command does have at least one parallel in Minnesota, from the time of the last great statewide election recount in 1962.

Rod Blagojevich was arrested today on charges that included alleged schemes to funnel money to the Illinois governor through his wife, Patricia. Because the charges against Blagojevich are criminal and made by the U.S. Department of Justice, they are on a wholly different order (at least so far, pending results of a newly reported FBI probe) from allegations about U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman that were made by private plaintiffs in a pair of Texas civil suits from October.

The dissimilarity, however, ends there.

Despite the GOP’s efforts to link Barack Obama to the Rod Blagojevich scandal, the president-elect states he’s “had no contact with the governor or his office so [he] was not aware of what was happening.” Further, according to U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s statement (pdf), Obama, in the words of TPM, “wouldn’t pay to play.” The [...]

Even before all the facts are out, the Republican National Committee is trying to link Barack Obama to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested today for allegedly trying to sell off Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder. The Hill reports that the GOP’s email to reporters included “laudatory remarks the president-elect has made [...]

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris were reportedly arrested this morning under suspicion of using Sen. Barack Obama’s open seat for personal and financial gain. The FBI was granted approval to secretly record the Democratic governor after the Nov. 4 election as part of an ongoing corruption investigation.
According to a [...]