Dillard appointed to impeachment rules committee, says public must elect Senator

              Dillard appointed to impeachment rules committee, says public must elect Senator
Senator Kirk Dillard says Illinois lawmakers must do what is necessary to allow the public – not Governor Rod Blagojevich or
any other politician – to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-Elect Barack Obama.

Senator Dillard has also been appointed to serve on a committee that will establish impeachment trial procedures. 

“After federal agents arrested Governor Blagojevich December 9 for allegedly trying to profit from his role in selecting the
next U.S. Senator, the General Assembly was called back into legislative session to remove the Governor from the
process and allow citizens to pick the next U.S. Senator from Illinois,” Senator Dillard said. “We told the public that’s what
we were going to do; however the state’s Democrat leaders have decided they know best and would not allow us to
consider ‘special election’ legislation.”

House and Senate Democrats left Springfield without ever taking up a proposed plan to allow the public to pick Obama’s
replacement through a special election.
“The Democrats have fumbled the moral authority to pick Barack Obama’s successor to the United States Senate.
Hopefully, the people of Illinois will pick up that ball and move forward with a special election,” Senator Dillard said. “You
cannot put a price on democracy or the confidence that the people of the Land of Lincoln have in sending a replacement
for the President-Elect to the greatest deliberative body in the world – the United States Senate.”

Before they left December 16, the Senate did adopt Senate Resolution 966, which creates the Special Committee on
Impeachment Trial Procedures to recommend rules in the event of a House vote to impeach the Governor. Senator
Dillard will serve on this committee, which is chaired by Senate President-Elect John Cullerton, with whom Senator Dillard
has co-chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee “in an amiable fashion” for the past six years.

“The Special Committee on Impeachment Trial Procedures had its first meeting today (December 16). Our second
committee hearing is at 9:30 a.m., Friday, (December 19) in the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago,” Senator Dillard
said. “We will begin discussing rules, due process and evidentiary standards that need to be set should the House of
Representatives vote to impeach Governor Blagojevich.”

The 24th District Senator says if the House votes to impeach the Governor, the Senate will sit as jury with the Chief
Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court acting as presiding officer.
Senator Kirk Dillard
http://dillard.senategop.org Powered by Joomla! Generated: 12 January, 2009, 09:12