House stays clean despite dirty work
Conducts impeachment with dignity -- something gov lacks
SPRINGFIELD -- The Illinois House chamber was as solemn as a church service Friday morning, the unusual attention to decorum a message in itself: Impeachment is a serious business.
Legislators took their seats beneath the giant portraits of Lincoln and Douglas (and a smaller one of George Ryan) at the appointed hour of 9 o'clock, then sat quietly without the usual bantering and distractions until it was their turn to speak.
Ushers enforced a prohibition on standing in the press box and visitors gallery. No lobbyists roamed the rotunda's brass rail or lounged in the back corridors.
Gov. Blagojevich's legal troubles might have put Illinois at center stage in a three-ring circus that is the current darling of the infotainment industry, but House leaders were intent on making sure they did nothing to add to the spectacle.
It's no small matter to remove an official who has been duly elected through a fair and open election. That's why in the state's 190-year history -- for all our knaves, rascals and crooks -- we've never before impeached the state's chief executive.
The proceeding was finished in a merciful 90 minutes, the brevity particularly surprising given that lawmakers not only get to hear themselves speak but also watch themselves on two giant electronic video scoreboards. The final 114-1 vote to impeach was in keeping with the somber atmosphere. It will now be up to the Illinois Senate to carry out the actual burial.
Within hours of the House vote, though, another defiant display from Blagojevich reminded everybody that until the Senate acts, he is still the ringleader under our state's big top. Network news anchors were left dumbstruck by the latest poetic display from the governor, who this time quoted Tennyson instead of Kipling as he blamed the impeachment on legislators unhappy with his efforts to "fight for families," examples of whom he produced as human props.
I was watching on TV because I had come to the Capitol to witness the historic impeachment proceeding for myself, to satisfy a nagging concern over whether we're going about this the right way.
He's got to go. That's the bottom line. But we have to be careful not to do it in such a way that causes us to be back here in 10 years with legislators trying to get rid of a good governor who really did just make the wrong people mad, which is the false story that Blagojevich was trying to sell Friday while ignoring the more-serious criminal accusations.
It was a relief to see that the House -- and the Special Investigative Committee that produced the impeachment report -- were taking the responsibility seriously, even though I can see how they have left Blagojevich with little real opportunity to defend himself.
With the criminal case hanging over his head, his options for fighting impeachment are limited. His priority has to be to do nothing to imperil his freedom, which pretty much precludes doing anything that would tip the U.S. attorney to his defense strategy. That includes testifying in his own behalf in the impeachment.
Not one House member rose to say a word on Blagojevich's behalf.
Only Rep. David Miller, a Dolton Democrat, bothered to voice the flip-side argument that he said had been posed to him by constituents: "Why now?. . . He hasn't been convicted of anything?"
But he only did so to knock down the argument. The answer: it would take too long, and it's not legally necessary.
Even afterward, the only two House members who didn't vote against Blagojevich -- Chicago Democrats Milton Patterson and Elga Jefferies -- declined to offer any real defense of the governor. Patterson, who voted no, and Jefferies, who voted present, are both lame ducks who'll be out of office next week.
Blagojevich says the outcome will be different in the Senate, which now must conduct the trial, though there's no sane reason to believe that.
The governor doesn't get down here much himself these days, the fact that he never did being just one of the factors behind why his office door in the Capitol now functions mainly as a television backdrop for his detractors as they give interviews via satellite. That's probably a good thing. If Blagojevich lived in the governor's mansion, he might be talking to the portraits at this point like Dick Nixon.
There were many Nixon references Friday, which happened to be the birthday of the disgraced former president for whom Blagojevich has admitted his admiration.
The most fitting came from Rep. Susana Mendoza (D-Chicago). She noted that even Nixon had the grace to resign before he was impeached.