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  • A Just Cause: The Impeachment and Removal of Governor Rod Blagojevich by Bernard H. Sieracki
  • David Yepsen
Bernard H. Sieracki, A Just Cause: The Impeachment and Removal of Governor Rod Blagojevich. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016. 218 pp. $32.50.

It is hard to tally the damage Rod Blagojevich did to the state of Illinois. The state’s finances are a shambles, earning the state some of the worst bond ratings possible. Polls show 84 percent of Illinois voters think the state is headed in the wrong direction. Many people tell researchers they would leave the state if they could and that many young people actually are.

And this is five years and two governors after Blagojevich was booted from the governorship. Even in a state where public corruption is often a good source of humor and material for late night comedians, Blagojevich’s sins were appalling: trying to sell an appointment to Barack Obama’s US Senate seat and soliciting bribes. He famously said during a wiretapped conversation that the vacant seat was “fucking golden.”

All this in a state where legendary columnist, the late Mike Royko, suggested years ago the motto of the City of Chicago should be changed to “Where’s mine?”

And none of that includes outrages that were legal but shoddy management, such as not making pension payments on time.

In December 2008, the FBI famously arrested the governor in a late-night visit to his Chicago home, all captured for the cameras and the nation to see.

Even for the hard-boiled politicians of Illinois his actions were over the top. Something needed to be done before even greater damage was done. He had to be removed from the governorship and fast. While their personal dislike made the impeachment task easier, that act is still a serious business [End Page 79] and Sieracki has penned a useful work about how that process was organized and executed with dignity.

As former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar says in the jacket note to the book, the “most shameful day in Illinois political history led to some of the most heartening activity we had seen from the General Assembly in recent years.”

Sieracki was in a good position to give us what journalists call a “tick-tock” account of how the story unfolds. He worked as an Illinois lobbyist for 40 years, he knows the players and the nooks and crannies of the state’s politics. He earned his doctorate at the University of Illinois Chicago, and now teaches there. His access to the staffers, legislators and political players in the state meant he is able to give us a good account of how the process unfolded, even if his descriptions of his old associates are sometimes a tad flowery.

Those who followed the Blagojevich scandal will find the work a useful refresher. Those new to the controversy will find it a good summary of the scandal and how lawmakers handled it. It certainly belongs in every state library just in case another state has to dust off the arcane language of its constitution to get rid of a governor.

Blagojevich remains a symbol. He represents all that is bad about Illinois politics: Bad fiscal management and a political culture that says politics is a business, not public service and that it’s okay to use public office for personal gain. He besmirched all the honest public servants to the point where people can be heard saying “they’re all alike” or all politicians are crooked.

They’re not but that misperception was given new meaning by Blagojevich. It still hinders the ability of public officials today to make the tough, but necessary decisions needed to fix Illinois’ problems, including the ex-governor’s fiscal messes.

Sieracki’s book gives hope that leaders eventually stand up and do the right things. Unfortunately, his impeachment was five years ago, and public fraud and mismanagement still too common in what was once a powerful state with leaders of integrity like Abraham Lincoln, Everett Dirksen and, yes, Paul Simon. [End Page 80]

David Yepsen
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, Illinois
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