SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Rod Blagojevich, a former governor and ex-convict who frequently dropped old and sometimes cryptic quotes to emphasize his positions, on Thursday They found themselves in a reversal when a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking restitution. He quoted Dr. Seuss and said, “Let’s just go” in his public life.
A Chicago Democratic lawmaker who was impeached and removed from office in 2009 and subsequently served time in federal prison for political crimes has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to overturn the injunction barring him from returning to office following his impeachment.
Blago holds court: Ex-Government dramatically shares life in prison, declares he’s ‘President Trump’
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Stephen Seeger, in a colorful, 10-page commentary dismissing the lawsuit from Chicago, debunked the former governor’s claims point by issue, then went on to write a review of Dr. Seuss’s 1972 It was based on the 2011 book “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please”. I’m going now! ” To suggest what Blagojevich should do:
“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just go, go, go! I don’t care how. You can walk or you can go by bull. Marvin K. Mooney, please. Go now! “
Mark Vargas, a spokesman for Blagojevich, said the ruling was not a surprise.
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich speaks with reporters on Tuesday, October 24, 2006, in Springfield, Illinois. Blagojevich, a former governor and ex-convict who has often pulled brilliant, sometimes cryptic quotes out of thin air to emphasize his positions, on Thursday, March 212, 2024, a federal judge His lawsuit to return to public life was dismissed by quoting Dr. Seuss. (AP Photo/Seth Pearlman)
“People should be able to decide who they want to represent them and who they don’t want to represent them, not federal judges or establishment politicians who fear a governor who will fight for them,” Vargas said. Do I want to represent him or not?” he wrote on Twitter.
He did not say whether Blagojevich, 67, would take further action.
Blagojevich, who served as governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009, likes to quote Greek philosophers, Roman politicians, and the Bible (especially John 8:32, “The truth will make you free”). was.
He was impeached and removed from office in 2009 and faced 17 corruption charges in 2011, including trying to sell or trade for political gain the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama when he was elected president. Convicted. He served eight years of a 14-year sentence before his sentence was commuted by then-President Donald Trump in 2020. The Illinois Supreme Court also revoked his law license.
Blagojevich, who often joked during his time as governor that he earned a “C” in constitutional law from Pepperdine University School of Law, filed a lawsuit on his own behalf in 2021. Accompanied by a crowd of reporters, cameras and microphones outside the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago, the always perfectly coiffed Blagojevich declared, “I’m back.”
A federal civil rights complaint alleges that the state Senate’s ban on impeachment while in office violates the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and the First Amendment’s protection of people’s fundamental right to vote. They called for the injunction banning his impeachment to be revoked again. “And Blagojevich obviously means the fundamental right to vote for him,” Seeger explained.
“There are a lot of problems with this indictment,” Seger began. “If a problem is a fish in a barrel, then a complaint contains an entire school of tuna. It’s a target-rich environment. Complaints are a problem-finding wonderland.”
First, Seeger said civil rights claims must be filed against individuals, which neither the state of Illinois nor the Legislature does.
Mr. Seeger then discussed in detail why the Constitution’s separation of powers provisions prevent federal courts from intervening in Congress’ impeachment proceedings. The judge further noted that even if the injunction was revoked, Illinois law still prevents convicted felons from holding “offices of honor, trust, or gain.”
Seeger wrote that the Sixth Amendment applies to criminal trials, not civil trials, and said impeachment “took away jobs, not freedoms.”
Additionally, Blagojevich cannot sue to protect voters’ rights. Seeger said they need to make their voices heard and that “there are no voters here who want to vote for Blagojevich.”
In the end, the judge said that Blagojevich may not even have a reason to sue because he may want to run again at the time he filed the lawsuit but had not yet decided. Seeger said legal claims are “not ripe” when they depend on “future fortuitous events that may not occur.”
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“This case started with a megaphone and ends with a cry,” Seger concluded. “Cases in federal court can get a lot of attention, but the courthouse is not the place for publicity.
“He wants to come back, but he’s gone now. The case has been dismissed.”
