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SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Rod Blagojevich, the ex-governor and ex-con who usually dusted off historical and typically puzzling quotations to emphasise his positions, discovered himself on the different finish Thursday when a federal judge dismissed his lawsuit trying to return to public life by quoting Dr. Seuss: “Just go.”
The Chicago Democrat, impeached and faraway from workplace by the General Assembly in 2009, then sentenced to federal jail for political crimes, filed suit in federal court docket to reverse a ban accompanying his impeachment that prohibits his return to public workplace.
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On Thursday, in a colourful, 10-page smackdown dismissing the motion from Chicago, U.S. District Court Judge Steven Seeger debunked the previous governor’s claims problem by problem, then relied on Dr. Seuss’ 1972 e-book, “Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!” to recommend what Blagojevich ought to do:
“The time has come. The time has come. The time is now. Just Go. Go. GO! I don’t care how. You can go by foot. You can go by cow. Marvin K. Mooney, will you please go now!”
Mark Vargas, a Blagojevich spokesperson, stated the ruling was no shock.
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich speaks with information reporters Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2006, in Springfield, Ill. Blagojevich, the ex-governor and ex-con who usually pulled nice and typically puzzling quotations out of skinny air to emphasise his positions, discovered himself on the different finish Thursday, March 212, 2024, when a federal judge dismissed his lawsuit trying to return to public life by quoting Dr. Seuss: “Just go.” (AP Photo/Seth Perlman)
“The people should be able to decide who they want or don’t want to represent them,” Vargas wrote on X, previously Twitter, “not federal judges or establishment politicians who are afraid of governors who fight for the people.”
He didn’t say whether or not Blagojevich, 67, would take additional motion.
As Illinois governor from 2003 to 2009, Blagojevich was keen on quoting Greek philosophers, Roman statesmen and the Bible (significantly John 8:32: “The truth will set you free.”)
He was impeached and faraway from workplace in 2009, then convicted of 17 counts of corruption in 2011, together with trying to promote or commerce for political achieve the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama upon his election as president. He served eight years behind bars of a 14-year sentence earlier than his sentence was commuted by then-President Donald Trump in 2020. The Illinois Supreme Court additionally revoked his legislation license.
Blagojevich, who routinely joked whereas governor that he had obtained a “C” in constitutional legislation at Pepperdine University Law School, filed the lawsuit in 2021, representing himself. Accompanied by a gaggle of stories reporters, cameras and microphones exterior the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago, the all the time impeccably coifed Blagojevich declared, “I’m back.”
The federal civil rights criticism sought to reverse the state Senate’s impeachment ban on his holding workplace once more, arguing the ban violates the Constitution’s Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and the First Amendment’s safety of the individuals’s elementary proper to vote. “And by that,” Seeger defined, “Blagojevich apparently means the fundamental right to vote for him.”
“The complaint is riddled with problems,” Seeger started. “If the problems were fish in a barrel, the complaint contains an entire school of tuna. It is a target-rich environment. The complaint is an Issue-Spotting Wonderland.”
First off, Seeger stated that civil rights complaints have to be filed towards an individual, which neither the state of Illinois nor its General Assembly is.
Next, Seeger mentioned at size why a federal court docket can not intervene in a legislative impeachment continuing due to the Constitution’s separation-of-powers provision. The judge then identified that even when the impeachment ban was reversed, Illinois state legislation nonetheless prevents a convicted felon from holding “an office of honor, trust or profit.”
The Sixth Amendment, Seeger wrote, applies to prison trials, not civil trials: impeachment “took away his job, not his liberty,” he stated.
Further, Blagojevich cannot sue to guard the rights of voters. They want to talk for themselves, Seeger stated, and “no voter is here hoping to cast a vote for Blagojevich.”
Finally, the judge stated, Blagojevich won’t also have a motive to proceed as a result of when he filed the lawsuit, he stated he would possibly wish to run once more, however hadn’t determined. Seeger famous {that a} authorized declare is just not “ripe” if it is determined by “contingent future events that may not occur.”
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“The case started with a megaphone, but it ends with a whimper,” Seeger concluded. “Sometimes cases in the federal courthouse attract publicity. But the courthouse is no place for a publicity stunt.
“He desires again. But he is already gone. Case dismissed.”
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