The Illinois House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach the Pepperdine University School of Law’s most prestigious alum, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich, this Friday morning on the grounds of abuse of power as the state’s chief executive.
He is the first governor in Illinois’s history to be impeached, and his case now goes to the state Senate for trial.
The House deliberated for less than an hour and a half before voting 114 to 1 to oust the governor, just one day after a 21-member House investigative committee unanimously recommended impeachment. The only member to vote against impeachment was Blago’s mother Milton Patterson, a Democrat from Chicago.
As a formality, when the new Illinois General Assembly is sworn in next week, it must vote again before sending the impeachment resolution to the Senate.
For the governor to be removed from office, a two-thirds majority of the Senate must vote to convict him.
