I have a new story up on the Blago scandal, about the attempts by Obama allies to use dubious methods to rush Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office. First Illinois attorney general Lisa Madigan, an Obama ally, tries to have Blagojevich declared "disabled," using a constitutional provision intended for chief executives who have suffered some sort of physical or mental disability. (That writers of that section of the Illinois constitution remembered an governor in the late 1930s who suffered a massive stroke and did not leave office.)
Then Madigan argued that the Blagojevich scandal is doing terrible damage to the state's finances But why is that?
Beyond stretching the definition of “disability,” Madigan also claims that her task is especially urgent because Blagojevich’s problems are leading Illinois toward financial disaster. She gave her reasoning at the Friday news conference, when a reporter asked her to explain how state business “is not being accomplished because of the governor’s situation.”
"I’m going to give you one example,” Madigan answered. “Short-term borrowing — as you are aware, the state of Illinois is behind in paying its bills, in particular to Medicaid providers. I believe we have a backlog of at least a billion dollars in bills. In order to make those payments, there was short-term borrowing that was scheduled in the very near future. At this point, we — they have postponed that. And it may be very difficult to move forward on short-term borrowing.”
And just why is that? Madigan went on: “Because as part of the process, as the attorney general, I play a number of roles. One is to essentially review and say that the short-term borrowing is legal, but another portion of that requires me to sign a certificate certifying that I am not aware of any proceeding or threatened litigation challenging the authority of the governor to hold his office. And so I at this point would not necessarily be able to sign that.”
With that, Madigan argued that Blagojevich’s problems have led the state to fiscal crisis because it desperately needs to borrow money but cannot do so because it cannot get the signature of…Lisa Madigan. And that is because Lisa Madigan is engaged in litigation challenging the authority of the governor to hold his office.