House pushes up Blago impeachment hearings
The Illinois legislature on Friday took steps to pick up the pace on Gov. Rod Blagojevich's impeachment, hoping to get him out of office, a new governor in his place and another senator appointed before Blagojevich's U.S. Senate appointee, Roland Burris, is seated.
House Speaker Michael Madigan called the legislators back into session beginning Wednesday and told them to plan to be in session all week for a possible vote on a committee report on impeachment.
If the House votes to impeach, proceedings would then move to the Illinois Senate for a trial.
Burris is expected to be asked to testify before state lawmakers about the appointment and his dealings with Blagojevich, though exactly when that might occur was unknown Friday.
U.S. Senate staffers told the Daily Herald that if Burris shows up Tuesday, when new senators are being sworn in, they will deny him admittance if he does not have an appointment letter signed by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. White refused to sign the necessary papers, not out of any animus toward Burris but because he said any appointment by Blagojevich would be tainted. Blagojevich is charged in a federal complaint with plotting to sell the U.S. Senate appointment, among other things.
In anticipation of such a response Tuesday, Burris filed a motion Friday asking the Illinois Supreme Court to take up on an expedited basis his complaint asking the court to force White to sign the appointment.
"Failure of this court to act very quickly - may also result in an unlawful exercise of authority by (White) in allowing him to, in effect, block the lawful exercise of appointment by the Governor of Illinois," wrote Burris' attorneys.
Even if Burris gets White's signature, the U.S. Senate will not seat Burris immediately, but will delay seating him while it investigates his appointment, according to a public statement Friday by an aide to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Again, Reid and other senators say the problem is not with Burris but with Blagojevich.
Although there will probably be a stated time period for the investigation, perhaps 90 days, the hope is that Blagojevich would be impeached and replaced, and the new governor, now-Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, would rescind Burris' appointment and make a new one. The U.S. Senate would then seat the new appointee over Burris, said one Senate staffer.
That would leave Burris the option of suing. He could argue the seat is legally his.
There is some legal thinking that having the appointment rescinded before Burris is seated would be a legal way of avoiding have to take a Blagojevich appointment.
Harold Krent, dean of the IIT Chicago-Kent Law School, said he believes the appointment does not take effect until Burris is actually seated.
"So, if the impeachment process concludes prior to that vesting, Quinn will be able to withdraw the appointment," Krent wrote in an e-mail to the Daily Herald.
• Daily Herald news services contributed to this report.
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