| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| Quinn sworn in as Illinois new governor |
| 2009-01-31 |
| Only one hour after Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached out of office on corruption accusations by the state Senate Thursday afternoon, the Lt. Gov. Patrick Quinn took the public oath of office in Illinois state house of representative chamber. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Barbara, exactly. The constitution covers what the gov't can do in criminal cases - where people are going to be deprived of their liberty and/or their property. The governorship was not Blago's property. He has not lost his liberty - he was not sent to prison. He was simply removed from office. In fact, for the moment, he has more freedom, because he doesn't even have to go to work every day. Impeachment by the House, and conviction by the Senate are inherently political processes. They have nothing to do with due process. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-01-31 16:17 |
| #2 bman, from what I can gather from reading a law blog - where this was brought up - the Illinois constitution says the Illinois House has the right/responsibility to impeach, and they get to set the standards. It has nothing to do with our Constitution. One commenter there said, "The house impeached based on the totality of Blago's actions over the past few years." He also said that Blago "had due process based on the constitution and the senate rules for the trial." Considering this is Illinois, I'm wondering what the "totality of actions" was that was so different from the rest of the politicians in the Illinois swamp - unless maybe it was that he got caught. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-01-31 12:31 |
| #1 I am very uncomfotable with this process. Yes, Blago is a bad guy, but where was the due process etc.. that is part of our constitution? Besides, I miss the soap opera. |
| Posted by: bman 2009-01-31 11:59 |