Rod Blagojevich

“ Think about the dangerous precedent of removing me without proving any wrongdoing. If it could happen to a governor, it could happen to any citizen.
And then I would say to all of you, think about the things we’ve been able to do together. Health care for all of our kids, first in the nation. Preschool for three and four year-olds, best in the nation. Record amount of money in education. All of our senior citizens riding public transportation for free. Holding the line on taxes. Think about all the good things we’ve been able to do for people. ”

“ Imagine how you’d feel when the presumption of innocence that every American citizen has a right to is completely wiped out because of sensationalization of the media and other things and then you don’t even have a chance to be able to come around and figure out what happened. ”

“ Only if you go to Canada, you can get it for 40 or 50 percent less and save money for senior citizens.
And how many of us believe in free trade? Democrats believe in it, and I know you guys on the Republican side of the aisle believe in it. And yet somehow on the issue of prescription drugs, we don’t have free trade. We can’t go to Canada, our number one trading partner, and get the medicines that are necessary to save the lives of our seniors and our families and our children. ”

“ When you’re trying to help senior citizens afford their medicines, instead of just giving them a bunch of political baloney in speeches and say you care but then you don’t do anything about it but you found a way that you can actually do something and help them be able to have a better quality of life, not ration their medicine, maybe extend their lives, the means are legal because, if they’re not, then the governor of Wisconsin, the governor of Kansas and Ted Kennedy and Rahm Emanuel and John McCain and others ought to be co-conspirators with me. ”

“ Imagine going to bed one night thinking everything is fine, excited about decisions that you’re going to make, confident that you’ll be able to get a lot of the things you’ve been trying to do before done, like creating jobs, extending health care and protecting taxpayers and doing some other things. ”

“ Think about your responsibilities when the people choose you and you know you’ve kept your faith with them, but everybody else is saying you didn’t, but if you quit and give up and leave without having a chance to prove your innocence, how you’ve abandoned them and you’ve quit on them and you’ve violated your commitment to them. ”

“ And I’ve got to tell you, the fact that we have an inspector general was something that I pushed very hard for. And, yes, it gets embarrassing sometimes when your own inspector general finds that some people who work for you may not have done something right. But the greater good is served because you’re policing the system and making sure that people don’t do things they shouldn’t do and have a better understanding on some of the things they shouldn’t be in a position to be able to do. ”

“ And then imagine what it’s like when you realize what it is and you get home and the whole world’s like outside your house and then you, before you can even catch a breath, everybody has convicted you. ”

“ But I want you to know that one of the best things we did was invest record amounts of money in education, $8.4 billion in new money in education, a 30 percent increase, and we didn’t do it on the backs of the middle class by raising their taxes. We expanded health care to 750,000 families who didn’t have it before, increasing payments within the budget, but we didn’t do it by raising taxes on the middle class. ”

“ And even more important than my daughters, the people of Illinois. It is painful to be in a position like this. It’s painful to hold your tongue and not be able to say too much because people are telling you, you shouldn’t do anything and they’ve already rushed to judgment and said you did something you didn’t do. It is painful to be in a car and drive and see people sitting, standing at bus stops or walking down the street who voted for you, presumably — more of them did than didn’t — and they hired you and trusted you and you’re dying to tell them, I didn’t do it. ”

“ And in 1948, the congress that one day his youngest son would one day become a member of, passed a law called the Displaced Persons Act and permitted him and millions of others like him with these long and hard to pronounce last names the chance to come to America, the land of freedom and the land of opportunity. ”

“ I just stayed right here in Illinois to try to do the best I can to get real results for people and to push and prod, maybe too hard sometimes, but to get real results for people.
And who are those people? People like my parents. My own life experience. I didn’t go to Harvard. Applied on a Monday, got my letter of rejection back on a Tuesday. I went to more modest type schools. But I’ve been blessed to have a chance and now suddenly I’m the governor. ”

“ My mother was a working person. CTA ticket agent. Passing out transfers at the subway stations. Everything they did was to work and sacrifice for their kids and give us a chance at a better life that wasn’t there for them.
And then one day their youngest son grows up and he becomes governor of the fifth largest state and he became governor because he had a lot of people helping him. He became governor because he went out and gave a lot of speeches about all the things he wanted to do for people just like his parents. ”

“ And more importantly, we and I pursued what I believed was the moral and right thing to do with legal means to do them, helping families make sure they have the flu vaccines that are necessary to keep them alive, and make sure that children and our seniors don’t get sick when we could find a way to try to help and protect them. ”

“ But isn’t that what a democracy is? And isn’t that how this process is supposed to work? And isn’t it really the way our country was founded? Nothing’s smooth but conflict and, out of conflict, hopefully good results occur. ”

“ What did I do in this case but provide health care for low-income families? Now, I understand the importance of the JCAR Committee, the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. I understand that six of you here in the Senate are members of that. The fact that you’d be picked to be on JCAR means you’re in good standing with your legislative leaders. ”

“ We then sought to get the necessary flu vaccines for the people of Illinois. The supplier of those flu vaccines, unfortunately, a portion of their supply was contaminated, and so there was a shortage. Because we had a creative program — which apparently another article of impeachment has been filed — to go to Canada and get cheaper and safer and affordable prescription medicines for our senior citizens, we had relationships with some of the manufacturers of prescription drugs and flu vaccines. ”

“ That’s the kind of thing that everybody agreed with but an approach that I thought would help families and not burden them and give them a lift up a little bit and not have them just run in place, hearing a lot of stuff that the governor said he did, but not really feeling like their lives have improved. I think about my parents a lot. I think about ordinary people I’ve met along the way a lot. I met a woman not long ago who told me her story and she’s the kind of person that I believe my policies have been for. ”

“ Give her a chance to afford health care through the All Kids Program. Give her a chance to send those boys to preschool. Give her a chance to be able to make a living and hopefully have upward (ph) mobility and protect from those who might want to raise her taxes and make it harder for her. ”

“ They warned that you ought to get your flu shot, and then they warned, especially to seniors and mothers with small children, infants, that you better make sure your kids, your babies and your elderly parents get flu shots because the flu that’s coming could actually take people’s lives. ”