Blagojevich Impeached

For the first time in the history of the state of Illinois, the Governor has been impeached. The vote now moves to the Senate where a 2/3 vote could remove him from office. The precedings arose from the Governor’s arrest last fall.

Setting up a dramatic fight for his future in the state Senate, Blagojevich painted his accusers as small-minded figures who persistently thwarted his efforts at reform. At a choreographed news conference, the governor likened himself to the resourceful Ulysses, quoting Tennyson to say that he and his hired band of defenders have “heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will — to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

“He tried to sell Obama’s Senate seat like trying to sell a 4-H hog at the Boone County fair,” said Rep. Ronald A. Wait, the longest-serving Republican in the state House. Rep. Susana A. Mendoza, a Chicago Democrat, said: “Even Nixon displayed more integrity than Rod Blagojevich. He resigned before he was impeached.”

Blagojevich Answers Impeachment Vote – Washington Post