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Transcript of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's closing argument

January 29, 2009

The next paragraph, the next article, is the issue of the auditor general. Now what did I do there? The auditor general apparently, it's my understanding, had an issue with CMS, Central Management Services. Now, I may be the only one here left who still is proud of all the different things I've been able to accomplish as governor, and I want to say most of it couldn't have happened without you here in the state Senate. You all know what the political dynamic has been here over the past six years, and every one of the big achievements I've been able [to] get as governor couldn't have been done without you. And sometimes, with 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 dollars 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 without--by raising taxes on the middle class, but we did it in different ways. And one of the ways we did it was by efficiency--consolidating function, having agencies do a better job making sure they can streamline their activities--and Central Management Services, CMS, was one of those places.

In the first term, they were successful in saving over $500 million for taxpayers because they found creative ways to do it. And in this particular case, on this issue with the auditor general, they found a way to save some money in some place, and then what they wanted to do was allow us to be able to use that money in the general revenue fund to invest in health care and education and other general revenue items, but then the auditor general got involved and said, "Stop, don't do it." Now I have a recollection of actually remembering this, I remember I was in Washington, D.C., when the head of CMS and that Mr. Holland, the auditor general, got into a little bit of a verbal fight. I remember being amused by that, thinking they had a couple of accountants kind of scrapping over the issue of whether or not some money should be spent a certain way or not. When the inspector general, Mr. Holland, told us, "You can't do it," guess what? We did--we didn't do it.

How can you impeach me and throw me out of office? The chief accountant of the state comes in and says,"You can't do that." We hear you, we're not doing it. And we didn't do it. How can that be an impeachable offense? And here, too, like on prescription drugs for seniors and flu vaccines for the elderly and for infants, here, too, this was an issue that took place in the first term, not the second term. This was something that, if it was so bad, you should have impeached me on before and not now. And in spite of it, the people of Illinois elected me a second time. Now the last article is the report by the AIG, the inspector general. And just to back up and give you a little bit of history, one of the accomplishments that we were able to have together in the first term, in the veto session of 2003, was to create a new ethics law, change the rules of ethics, and for the first time ever create an inspector general that was independent of the governor. Not the governor's friend, but [an] independent inspector general who would be brought on to police the system of state government. That he or she would be there to make sure that all of us, all state employees and others who worked for the governor, in this case, are doing things right.

We hired a former United States attorney as our first inspector general. This report from the inspector general alleges that some people, perhaps, may have--it's an allegation, nothing proven, nothing shown yet to be true, but an allegation--that some people who worked for me may have violated some of the hiring rules. In that very report by the inspector general, there's never an allegation that I ever knew anything about it. How can I possibly be thrown out of office on something that the inspector general doesn't even claim I knew anything about? And, incidentally, something that still has not been resolved. So I ask you to remember, too, that that issue was one that took place in the first term, not the second term, and if it was so bad then, then perhaps I should have been impeached over that. But yet again, the inspector general doesn't say I knew anything about it. There hasn't been any finding that anyone did anything wrong, and I've got to tell you, the fact we have an inspector general was something I pushed very hard for, and, yeah, 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 of some of the things they shouldn't be in a position to be able to do.