Word: madigan
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...move effectively stalled the impeachment hearings that just began last week and have cast Madigan onto the national stage. The hearings are slated to resume Monday, when Blagojevich's defense attorney Ed Genson is set to appear and try to rebut charges he and his client say are totally without merit. But it's not clear at this point what will happen, since the scope of the inquiry has been seriously limited. Still, Madigan may get some of what he wants - federal prosecutors are reportedly considering allowing the panel some access to the actual wiretapped tapes of Blagojevich allegedly plotting...
...Thin and wary of media exposure despite his high profile, Madigan, 66, quite simply, is Illinois politics. Legislation halts, or dies, without his blessing, much the same way as politics goes nowhere in Chicago without Mayor Richard M. Daley giving the nod. His power is amplified by his being the head of an emerging Illinois political dynasty - his adopted daughter Lisa is the hard-charging state attorney general who tried unsuccessfully to get the state supreme court to declare Blagojevich temporarily unfit to serve, and who herself is often touted as a future gubernatorial or even U.S. Senate candidate. "There...
...frequent critic of Blagojevich despite co-chairing the governor's 2006 re-election campaign, Madigan made his position clear early in the case, which broke Dec. 9: "During these six days [since Blagojevich's arrest] Governor Blagojevich has declined to voluntarily leave the office of governor. Quite frequently, I have stood in opposition to Governor Blagojevich, many times alone. However, my record of opposition to the governor and the governor's policies and programs will not stand in the way" of a fair hearing...
...everyone believes it is so fair. Some state Republicans criticized Madigan for appointing 12 Democrats and only nine Republicans to the investigative panel, which is charged with the task of making a recommendation as to whether the state senate should hold a full impeachment trial...
...Madigan and House Dems were also criticized by some Republicans for refusing to take up a bill that would have put in place a special election for Obama's vacant Senate seat rather than leave it open to appointment. Their defense was that it would be prohibitively expensive to hold a vote, especially since candidates would have to run again in 2010, when Obama's current term expires. (As it stands, no one knows how and when the seat will be filled, since Blagojevich has made it clear he is not going to make the appointment under the current cloud...