Blagojevich convicted, removed from office

In a swift and stunning unanimous decision, the Illinois Senate voted 59-0 today to remove embattled Governor Rod Blagojevich from office. The vote ends a nearly two-month saga between the former governor, the state legislature and the U.S. Senate after allegations surfaced that Blagojevich had tried to sell Barack Obama's former Senate seat to the highest bidder.

The Chicago Tribune called it "the first time in the state's long history of political corruption that a chief executive has been impeached and convicted."

The vote came after Blagojevich made a last ditch effort to save his governorship, reversing his much publicized decision to boycott the impeachment trial and show up in Springfield personally to argue his case. The governor pleaded with lawmakers on Thursday to let him to continue to serve and insisted again that he had done nothing wrong or illegal.

But state senators were unmoved, and by the end of the business day they had replaced Blagojevich with Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn. The governor was immediately removed from office and banned from ever holding public office in the state of Illinois again.

While the Illinois Senate conducted its four-day trial, Blagojevich had been holding national media interviews to make his case that the trial was unfair, that he could not call witnesses, and that he had nothing illegal or improper. But today the governor halted his media tour and returned to the legislature to make his appeal directly to the Senate body that was described by the Tribune as "stoic."

The move was welcomed by Senate Democrats, who had hoped that Blagojevich would be removed in time to allow the new governor to select the senator from Illinois. But in one of Blagojevich's final moves, he chose former state attorney general Roland Burris to fill Obama's Senate seat.

Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin initially appeared to balk at Blagojevich's appointment of Burris, made earlier this month. But after days of negative publicity that threatened to divide the party along racial lines days before the Inauguration, Senate Democrats backed down and allowed Burris to be seated.

Although Blagjoevich is no longer the governor, his troubles are not over. He still faces potential criminal corruption charges following his arrest last month at his home in Chicago. Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has indicated he still plans to pursue his case against Blagojevich and he only allowed the state senate to have limited access to the audiotapes that allegedly revealed the governor involved in illegal activity.