A few questions about which you may be wondering:
1. With what was Gov. Blagojevich charged?
The indictment criminal complaint (PDF) has two counts: conspiracy to defraud the State of Illinois and the people of the State of Illinois of the honest services to which each was entitled, which is a crime under the mail fraud statutes, and a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666, theft or bribery around federal funds. The former involves the alleged pay-to-play issues around the Senate vacancy and other schemes, including a threat to rescind $8M in state funds from a Chicago children's hospital unless its CEO made a $50K contribution to his campaign. The latter charge regards threats to withhold financial assistance to the Tribune Company for its failure to fire "certain Chicago Tribune editorial members responsible for widely-circulated editorials critical of" the Governor.
The "honest services" charge under mail fraud was also central to the indictment of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, and I am compelled to direct you to some blog posts by my Criminal Procedure professor, Al Alschuler, on why one might want to be skeptical of giving prosecutors such a broad tool to use, one which then-prosecutor, now-Judge Jed Rakoff famously once called "our Stradivarius, our Colt .45, our Louisville Slugger, our Cuisinart -- and our true love."
2. Can Blagojevich still appoint Obama's Senate replacement?
Yes. As long as he is still Governor, Rod Blagojevich retains all the powers of the office, which includes the power to make appointments when a Senate seat is vacant.
3. So what can be done to stop him from, say, appointing himself right now?
Three options that I can see:
Take away the Governorship. Under Article 4, Section 14 of the Illinois Constitution, he can be impeached, convicted and removed from office.
Alternatively, under Article 5, he can resign, or temporarily cede power "whenever the Governor determines that he may be seriously impeded in the exercise of his powers," which this certainly seems like.
Take away the power to appoint. The Illinois legislature could simply repeal the Governor's ability to make interim Senate appointments, and replace it with a swift special election. While the Constitution allows Governors to make interim Senate appointments (unlike the House), it does not require that state legislatures empower them to do so. Under the 17th Amendment, "When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct."
And as of now, this is looking likely. If such an effort fails, however ...
Expel the appointed Senator from the Senate. While the Senate is indeed "the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members," (Art I, sec 5), this "qualifications" judgment is limited to judging the constitutional fitness for the office (thirty years of age, nine years a citizen of the United States, and an inhabitant of that state for which s/he was chosen when elected). Or at least that's what the Supreme Court held in Powell v. McCormack (1969), regarding the House's efforts to not seat Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, when he was re-elected under a cloud of scandal. (He was defeated in the subsequent primary by a 39-year-old state assemblyman named Charlie Rangel.)
However, Article I, Section 5 does empower the Senate to expel one of its members by a two-thirds vote, so while they may be required to swear in whoever Blagojevich appoints, they're not required to allow that person to stay.
4. Who is Senate Candidate 1, Senate Candidate 2, etc?
Senate Candidate 1 appears to be Valerie Jarrett, who removed herself from consideration right when the indictment suggests that candidate did. Archpundit convincingly asserts that Candidate 2 is Lisa Madigan, and believes that Louanner Peters is number 4.
The only one who's accused of anything shady is Number 5, from whom Blagojevich thought he might get signicant fundraising in return for the seat. Marc Ambinder thinks it's Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr; Ben Smith wonders if it's State Rep. Art Turner.
5. What part of the indictment criminal complaint should I read that I haven't yet?
While everyone's focusing on the Senate vacancy side, don't ignore the Governor's threats to the Tribune Company regarding the newspaper's critical editorials and the company's desire for state assistance. Edited for language, because I'm all about protecting the children:
- In another call between ROD BLAGOJEVICH and Deputy Governor A that occurred a short time later on November 3, 2008, ROD BLAGOJEVICH and Deputy Governor A discussed an editorial from the Chicago Tribune regarding the endorsement of Michael Madigan and calling for a committee to consider impeaching ROD BLAGOJEVICH. During the call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s wife can be heard in the background telling ROD BLAGOJEVICH to tell Deputy Governor A "to hold up that ****ing Cubs s***. . . **** them." ROD BLAGOJEVICH asked Deputy Governor A what he thinks of his wife’s idea. Deputy Governor A stated that there is a part of what ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s wife said that he "agree[s] with." Deputy Governor A told ROD BLAGOJEVICH that Tribune Owner will say that he does not have anything to do with the editorials, "but I would tell him, look, if you want to get your Cubs thing done get rid of this Tribune." Later, ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s wife got on the phone and, during the continuing discussion of the critical Tribune editorials, stated that Tribune Owner can "just fire" the writers because Tribune Owner owns the Tribune. ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s wife stated that if Tribune Owner’s papers were hurting his business, Tribune Owner would do something about the editorial board. ROD BLAGOJEVICH then got back on the phone. ROD BLAGOJEVICH told Deputy Governor A to put together the articles in the Tribune that are on the topic of removing ROD BLAGOJEVICH from office and they will then have someone, like JOHN HARRIS, go to Tribune Owner and say, "We’ve got some decisions to make now." ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that "someone should say, ‘get rid of those people.’" ROD BLAGOJEVICH said that he thinks that they should put this all together and then have HARRIS or somebody go talk to the Tribune owners and say, "Look, we’ve got decisions to make now. . . moving this stuff forward (believed to be a reference to the IFA helping with the Cubs sale) . . . someone’s gotta go to [Tribune Owner], we want to see him. . it’s a political ****in’ operation in there." Deputy Governor A agreed and said that HARRIS needs to be "sensitive" about how he does it. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said there is nothing sensitive about how you do it and that it’s "straight forward" and you say "we’re doing this stuff for you, we believe this is right for Illinois [and] this is a big deal to [Tribune Owner] financially" but what ROD BLAGOJEVICH is doing to help Tribune Owner is the same type of action that the Tribune is saying should be the basis for ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s impeachment. ROD BLAGOJEVICH said Tribune Owner should be told "maybe we can’t do this now. Fire those ****ers." Deputy Governor A suggested that ROD BLAGOJEVICH say, "I’m not sure that we can do this anymore because we’ve been getting a ton of these editorials that say, look, we’re going around the legislature, we gotta stop and this is something the legislature hasn’t approved. We don’t want to go around the legislature anymore." ROD BLAGOJEVICH agreed and said that he wants HARRIS to go in and make that case, "not me." Deputy Governor A agreed and said that he likes it. ROD BLAGOJEVICH asked Deputy Governor A to put the list of Tribune articles together.
Oh, and one more reminder, from the DOJ press release:
The public is reminded that a complaint contain only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendants are presumed innocent and are entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.