(CBS/AP) “The ordeal is over.”

So said newly-sworn-in Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, referring to the State Senate’s vote yesterday to remove Rod Blagojevich from office.

After weeks of shocking twists and turns, the conclusion of Blagojevich’s tenure as Illinois governor offered little surprise.

Accused of trying to sell Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat, Blagojevich becomes the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed by impeachment.

Once the State House impeached him earlier this month for abuse of power, the Senate did what was expected and voted to throw Blagojevich out of office. And on an identical 59-0 roll call, it barred the two-term Democrat from ever again holding public office in the state.

“He failed the test of character. He is beneath the dignity of the state of Illinois. He is no longer worthy to be our governor,” said Sen. Matt Murphy, a Republican from suburban Chicago.

The state’s Democratic Lieutenant Governor (and one of Blagojevich’s strongest critics), 60-year-old Quinn, was promptly sworn in as governor.

Blagojevich, 52, had boycotted the first three days of the impeachment trial, calling the proceedings a kangaroo court. But on Thursday, he went before the Senate to fight for his job, delivering a 47-minute plea that was, by turns, defiant, humble and sentimental.

He offered familiar lines: He was innocent. The trial rules were unfair. His goal always was to help people.

“You haven’t proved a crime, and you can’t because it didn’t happen,” Blagojevich told lawmakers. “How can you throw a governor out of office with insufficient and incomplete evidence?”

“I think what’s been very disappointing and very frustrating to everyone involved in the process … is that the governor could have brought forward information and evidence and witnesses, and he refused at every turn to do so,” Illinois State Attorney General Lisa Madigan said on CBS’ The Early Show. “He didn’t participate when the House was considering impeachment. He obviously refused to participate in the actual trial in front of the Senate.

“But he did come to make a closing statement where he wasn’t under oath, and therefore said a whole series of things that ultimately were taken as incredible, as well as potentially going to be used against him in his ultimate criminal trial.”

In a solemn scene, more than 30 lawmakers rose one by one on the Senate floor to accuse Blagojevich of abusing his office and embarrassing the state. They denounced him as a hypocrite, saying he cynically tried to enrich himself and then posed as the brave protector of the poor and “wrapped himself in the constitution.”

“I think this is a new beginning for our state and one that is absolutely necessary in the aftermath of a very destructive tenure of the governor,” Madigan (left) told Early Show anchor Maggie Rodriguez. “And so it is actually a good day. Certainly difficult times ahead and challenges, but we are going to move forward.”

Blagojevich did not stick around to hear the vote. He took a state plane back to Chicago.

He did, however, use his last day in office to grant clemency to a prominent Chicago real estate developer and a former drug dealer, just hours before the vote to oust him.

However, his troubles are not over; Federal prosecutors are drawing up an indictment against him on corruption charges.

The new governor also canceled the former governor’s security detail, which ended when Blagojevich arrived home from the state Capitol.

Outside his Chicago home Thursday night, Blagojevich vowed to “keep fighting to clear my name,” and added: “Give me a chance to show you that I haven’t let you down.”

Madigan was asked by Rodriguez if Blagojevich’s actions up to and after the trial were delusional or signs that he was in denial about what was happening to him.

“I think a lot of people have speculated,” Madigan said. “Certainly you’ve heard what our mayor has had to say, that there’s something the matter with the governor.” [Chicago's Richard Daley had called Blagojevich "Coo-coo."] “You know, it’s incomprehensible to me as a lawyer why you would conduct yourself in the manner that he has. If you were really serious about being innocent and if you believed that you can prove that you are not guilty, then use the forum that’s presented to you - work within the law.

“Instead he chose to fly off to New York and be on every possible TV talk show that was available to him and really never directly answered the questions that were posed to him, even on those talk shows, but [which] obviously were being dealt with by our State Senate. So obviously it appears that there must be some sort of a problem.

“At a bare minimum, he seems quite comfortable in mispresenting the truth.”

“Do you think this will end with the governor being convicted and going to jail?” Rodriguez asked.

“I do.”

“We Have This Thing Called Impeachment And It’s Bleeping Golden”

The verdict brought to an end what one lawmaker branded “the freak show” in Illinois. Over the past few weeks, Blagojevich found himself isolated, with almost the entire political establishment lined up against him. The crisis paralyzed state government and made Blagojevich a punchline from coast to coast.

Many ordinary Illinoisans were glad to see him go.

“It’s very embarrassing. I think it’s a shame that with our city and Illinois, everybody thinks we’re all corrupt,” Gene Ciepierski, 54, said after watching the trial’s conclusion on a TV at Chicago’s Billy Goat Tavern. “To think he would do something like that, it hurts more than anything.”

The verdict capped a head-spinning string of developments that began with the governor’s arrest by the FBI on Dec. 9. Federal prosecutors had been investigating Blagojevich’s administration for years, and some of his closest cronies already have been convicted.

The most spectacular allegation was that Blagojevich had been caught on wiretaps scheming to sell an appointment to Mr. Obama’s Senate seat for campaign cash or a plum job for himself or his wife.

“I’ve got this thing and it’s (expletive) golden, and I’m just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I’m not gonna do it,” he was quoted as saying on a government wiretap.

Sen. James Meeks, a Chicago Democrat, mocked Blagojevich during debate: “We have this thing called impeachment and it’s bleeping golden and we’ve used it the right way.”

Prosecutors also said Blagojevich illegally pressured people to make campaign contributions and tried to get editorial writers fired from the Chicago Tribune for badmouthing him in print.

Mr. Obama himself, fresh from his historic election victory, was forced to look into the matter and issued a report concluding that no one in his inner circle had done anything wrong.

“Today ends a painful episode for Illinois,” the president said in a Thursday night statement. “For months, the state had been crippled by a crisis of leadership. Now that cloud has lifted.”

Even as lawmakers were deciding whether to launch an impeachment, Blagojevich defied the political establishment by appointing a former Illinois attorney general, Roland Burris, to the very Senate seat he had been accused of trying to sell. Top Democrats on Capitol Hill eventually backed down and seated Burris.

As his trial got under way, Blagojevich launched a national media blitz, rushing from one TV studio to another in New York to proclaim his innocence. He likened himself to the hero of a Frank Capra movie and to a cowboy in the hands of a Wild West lynch mob.

The impeachment case included not only the criminal charges against Blagojevich, but allegations he broke the law when it came to hiring state workers, expanded a health care program without legislative approval and spent $2.6 million on flu vaccine that went to waste. The 118-member House twice voted to impeach him, both times with only one “no” vote.

Seven other U.S. governors have been removed by impeachment, the most recent being Arizona’s Evan Mecham in 1988. Illinois never before impeached a governor, despite its long and rich history of graft.

By Thursday night, Blagojevich’s name and picture had disappeared from the state’s official Web site. Instead, an unobtrusive “Pat Quinn, Governor” was in the upper right corner.

CBS Station WBBM also reports that signs on the Illinois Tollway system touting open-road tolling will be replaced. The signs, which prominently feature the name of Blagojevich (who had pushed for the open-road tolling system) were erected in 2004 at a cost of $480,000.

The Financial Burdens Accrue

CBS Station WBBM correspondent Mike Parker reports the former governor also faces financial stress, having lost his $177,000 annual salary just weeks after wife, Patty, lost her $100,000-a-year fundraising job.

Blagojevich also won’t be able to collect state unemployment benefits because he was fired for misconduct. Blagojevich will also lose his governor’s pension if he’s convicted in federal court.

In addition, Federal prosecutors could try to seize the multi-million dollar Blagojevich campaign fund. If they do, he won’t be able to use those funds to pay for his legal defense.

Meeting these financial burdens will be difficult given Blagojevich’s limited options. Cindy Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform told Parker, “He’s tarnished goods. He is in a bad spot.”

SOURCE: CBSNEWS.COM & ASSOCIATED PRESS

On this day in 1789, America’s first presidential election is held. Voters cast ballots to choose state electors; only white men who owned property were allowed to vote. As expected, George Washington won the election and was sworn into office on April 30, 1789.

As it did in 1789, the United States still uses the Electoral College system, established by the U.S. Constitution, which today gives all American citizens over the age of 18 the right to vote for electors, who in turn vote for the president. The president and vice president are the only elected federal officials chosen by the Electoral College instead of by direct popular vote.

Today political parties usually nominate their slate of electors at their state conventions or by a vote of the party’s central state committee, with party loyalists often being picked for the job. Members of the U.S. Congress, though, can’t be electors. Each state is allowed to choose as many electors as it has senators and representatives in Congress. The District of Columbia has 3 electors. During a presidential election year, on Election Day (the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November), the electors from the party that gets the most popular votes are elected in a winner-take-all-system, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, which allocate electors proportionally. In order to win the presidency, a candidate needs a majority of 270 electoral votes out of a possible 538.

On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December of a presidential election year, each state’s electors meet, usually in their state capitol, and simultaneously cast their ballots nationwide. This is largely ceremonial: Because electors nearly always vote with their party, presidential elections are essentially decided on Election Day. Although electors aren’t constitutionally mandated to vote for the winner of the popular vote in their state, it is demanded by tradition and required by law in 26 states and the District of Columbia (in some states, violating this rule is punishable by $1,000 fine). Historically, over 99 percent of all electors have cast their ballots in line with the voters. On January 6, as a formality, the electoral votes are counted before Congress and on January 20, the commander in chief is sworn into office.

Critics of the Electoral College argue that the winner-take-all system makes it possible for a candidate to be elected president even if he gets fewer popular votes than his opponent. This happened in the elections of 1876, 1888 and 2000. However, supporters contend that if the Electoral College were done away with, heavily populated states such as California and Texas might decide every election and issues important to voters in smaller states would be ignored.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2009-01-07

Tonight the World has changed Barack Obama has been elected president of these United States. John McCain was defeated in a landslide victory and America will never be the same. Yes we can.

Here is the speech transcript:

On this day in 1964, residents of the District of Columbia cast their ballots in a presidential election for the first time. The passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 gave citizens of the nation’s capital the right to vote for a commander in chief and vice president. They went on to help Democrat Lyndon Johnson defeat Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964, the next presidential election.

Between 1776 and 1800, New York and then Philadelphia served as the temporary center of government for the newly formed United States. The capital’s location was a source of much controversy and debate, especially for Southern politicians, who didn’t want it located too far north. In 1790, Congress passed a law allowing President George Washington to choose the permanent site. As a compromise, he selected a tract of undeveloped swampland on the Potomac River, between Maryland and Virginia, and began to refer to it as Federal City. The commissioners overseeing the development of the new city picked its permanent name–Washington–to honor the president. Congress met for the first time in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 1800.

The District was put under the jurisdiction of Congress, which terminated D.C. residents’ voting rights in 1801. In 1961, the 23rd Amendment restored these rights, allowing D.C. voters to choose electors for the Electoral College based on population, with a maximum of as many electors as the least populated state. With a current population of over 550,000 residents, 61-square-mile D.C. has three electoral votes, just like Wyoming, America’s smallest state, population-wise. The majority of D.C.’s residents are African Americans and they have voted overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates in past presidential elections.

In 1970, Congress gave Washington, D.C., one non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives and with the passage of 1973’s Home Rule Act, Washingtonians got their first elected mayor and city council. In 1978, a proposed amendment would have given D.C. the right to select electors, representatives and senators, just like a state, but it failed to pass, as have subsequent calls for D.C. statehood.

HISTORY.COM
Date: 2008-11-03

Election Day Fraud Notice. Obama and McCain 2008 election. Rock the vote.

-editorhkt