Impeached Blagojevich still defiant

By | Friday, January 9, 2009

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UPDATED:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- The Illinois House voted overwhelmingly Friday to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich, an unprecedented action that sets up a Senate trial on whether he should be thrown out for abuse of power, including allegations that he tried to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat.

Impeachment required just 60 votes. The final result was 114-1.

In a sometimes rambling speech made to the press Friday, Mr. Blagojevich said that his impeachment was a "foregone conclusion" that began with his re-election in 2006. Mr. Blagojevich says his efforts to improve health care and cut property taxes for Illinois residents are related to his impeachment because members of the Illinois House resisted those moves.

The 52-year-old Democrat says he's "not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing."

Legislators accused the second-term Democratic governor of letting down the people of Illinois by letting ego and ambition drive his decisions.

"It's our duty to clean up the mess and stop the freak show that's become Illinois government," said Rep. Jack D. Franks, a Democrat.

Blagojevich was out jogging in his Chicago neighborhood when the vote came down. When he returned to his home, he compared his situation to a short story about a petty criminal called "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner."

"And that's what this (impeachment) is, by the way, a long-distance run," Blagojevich said, promising to say more at an afternoon news conference.

Blagojevich is the first governor impeached in Illinois' long and often sordid political history. He could become only the eighth U.S. governor to be impeached and removed from office; the last was Arizona's Evan Mecham in 1988.

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