I’m not sure why you think it would be more “ethical” for her to sit and let a Governor whose conflicts disable him from being able to credibly act skate on, but I think she did a good job for her client, the state.

Your explanation of the law cleared it up for me. I thought the AG was misapplying a statute about mental competence as opposed to the application of the statute you described.

I think the AG did not do a very good job explaining the case or the statute. Perhaps because she did not want to get into the evidence. Anyway, as you note, mission accomplished.

They should, IMO, do first things first with revising the statutory delegation of appointment power to Blago and require the US Constitutionally preferred alternative of a special election, then go on to impeachment, which they can meander through on their own schedule. And if they are holding ACTIVE hearings into impeachment, then the Court should either dismiss or stay the AG’s action pending that outcome. But the problem is that if some of the allegations are true, Blago has huge problems of conflicts in multiple other areas that preclude an ability to effectively govern, since so many of his duties at this point would relate to matters touching upon the criminal allegations. In that case, I’m fine with anything that keeps the fire to act quickly turned up. I agree she may be trying to deflect spec away from her own sights that were set on the seat, and on that front, she should be pretty careful bc if she has conflicts similar to Blagos (if she was involved in possibly criminal contacts with his office re: payments for the seat) and is then using her office against him, she’s got a problem.

You don’t know what the total of the evidence that she has at hand would be (there may well be evidence indicative of meltdowns) and you also don’t really know how the fitness to serve aspects of the Illinois constitution will be interpreted. They are NOT stated in terms of mental disease, defect or lack of mental competence. My understanding is that the standard is one of disability.

As a matter of legal construction, disability would be deemed to include, among other things, disqualification, as, for example, in disqualification for conflicts of interest. It definitely appears taht there are conflicts of interest issues at this point in time on whole plethora of issues that are implicated by the allegations made by the Feds and that would under a normal legal “conflict of interest” standard result in a disqualification for Blagojevitch to serve on those issues.

So if he is under a disability from serving on not just one (the Senate seat) but a whole cadre issues, including funding allocations and bill signings on numerous matters where he is alleged to have a personal interest and possiblity to have obtained that personal interest in connection with criminal actions such as bribes or obstruction or otherwise selling of his public service (and my understanding is that there are such a plethora and that the ILAG pled them -things like the children’s hospital funding, appointments to state boards for personal benefit, allocations to a state highway toll project that were being held hostage to campaign contributions, etc.) then you end up with a Governor with so many legal conflicts of interest in so many areas of his duties that I think he is very arguably under a legal disabilty from being able to perform at ALL, and certainly the court could very validly hold that he is at a minimum disabled from performing in those areas where he faced personal criminal charges.

If, in addition to reasonably believing that legal disabilities existed, the AG also believed that without extremely prompt action the state would be damaged by either the Governor’s actions despite his conflicts or the Governor’s inability to act bc of his conflicts, then I think ethics REQUIRE the AG to try to do what is best for the state. And towards that end, what would be best for the state would be for the legislature to act VERY quickly, which she tried to cause, and if not, for some other elected offical so empowered to act quickly.

I’m not sure why you think it would be more “ethical” for her to sit and let a Governor whose conflicts disable him from being able to credibly act skate on, but I think she did a good job for her client, the state.

Citizen Peterr:

Very well stated…this is the best analysis this ol’ grampa has read as to the interests of Ms. Madigan and the real politics behind her actions. Do you know how fast impeachment could be accomplished, ken it be fast tracked so as to get Count Blagojevich back into his coffin by the end of January?

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, YA CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!!

The IL SC will toss her request out, noting (correctly) that the remedy she seeks is available via the impeachment route. Her argument is based on language that is analogous to the 25th amendment to the US constitution, where the President can be temporarily removed from power when he/she is incapacitated. That is, asking the IL SC to remove the governor is an option when there is a medical, not political, disability. Political disabilities are the province of the impeachment process.

Lisa is playing to the cameras.