I seem to recall a time in Rod Blagojevich’s life when an open Senate seat was a “f*****g valuable thing” and “golden”, but apparently that time has passed.  The Chicago Sun-Times has learned that Blagojevich will consider signing a bill under debate today in the Illinois legislature that would strip him of his authority to appoint a replacement for Barack Obama in the US Senate:

Should he stay in office, Gov. Blagojevich is warming to the idea of holding a special election for President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

The governor — facing criminal charges that he put the seat and other state-government decisions up for sale — was optimistic at the start of the weekend that he would sign a bill that would strip him of his power to name Obama’s successor, a Blagojevich source said Sunday.

The governor didn’t commit to the idea, however, because he wants to make sure legislators send him a “clean bill” that would apply to future unexpected U.S. Senate vacancies — not just the Obama seat.

In other words, Blagojevich doesn’t want to leave that golden opportunity for corruption for future governors if he can’t enjoy it himself.  Maybe that’s not terribly noble, but it’s pretty good policy.  The state legislature should permanently change how Illinois fills those vacancies, especially given the endemic corruption in their state politics.  After all, Patrick Fitzgerald won’t be around forever to smoke out the crooks, even if it feels like he’s been there for an eternity to those whose corruption Fitzgerald threatens.

The Sun-Times also reports that Blagojevich has decided not to resign his office while Fitzgerald pursues criminal charges against him.  That will force the legislature to impeach him in order to remove Blagojevich from power.  He may change his mind if impeachment looks certain, but at the moment Blagojevich may have enough allies in Springfield to put that in doubt.  He will no doubt argue that he hasn’t yet been indicted, let alone convicted, on any corruption charges and that removal would be premature.

That much is true, but it’s also irrelevant.  The legislature could ask Fitzgerald to produce the wiretaps in an impeachment hearing for the legislature to judge the context of the quoted remarks.  In any case, impeachment isn’t a criminal trial and the rules of evidence won’t be the same.  Impeachment is a political process of expelling the corrupt and incompetent from high public office, and the legislature has a duty to act when they know or suspect that either applies to judges and executive officials — and in this case, Blagojevich arguably is both corrupt and incompetent.