Temporary Appointment To Fill Vacancies of Representatives

Did then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich try to work out a plan to keep White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s old congressional seat warm for him if Emanuel decided in a few years to return? Computer records in laptop battery, newly obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, offer the latest evidence the ousted governor did.

On the day last year that Emanuel was named White House chief of staff, John Harris, the top aide to then-Gov for VGP-BPS2. Blagojevich, began researching whether Blagojevich had the authority to appoint someone to temporarily fill Emanuel’s Northwest Side congressional seat, according to records that show the Web browser history on Harris’ state government computer.

The records show that Harris, who was Blagojevich’s chief of staff, Googled this exact search term on his state computer on Nov. 6, 2008: “temporary appointment to fill vacancies in the house of representatives for Presario 2500 Battery.”

The confirmation of Harris’ Google search — which, by the way, yielded 308,000 hits — lends credence to previous Sun-Times reports that Blagojevich’s office was working with Emanuel at that time on a strategy that would enable Emanuel to one day reclaim his old House seat and vie for the powerful post of speaker of the House.

In September, the newspaper reported that Emanuel wanted Blagojevich to appoint Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool to fill his soon-to-be-vacant 5th Congressional District seat for Inspiron E1505 Battery. Emanuel broached the idea with the then-governor just days after last year’s presidential election, the paper reported. The proposal was for Claypool to serve one or two terms, then to be considered for a spot in President Obama’s Cabinet, which would give Emanuel the option of returning to Congress and making a bid for speaker, sources told the Sun-Times.

Emanuel had hoped Blagojevich had the authority to appoint someone to serve the remaining weeks of his House term before a new Congress was seated in January for PA3420U-1BRS which would have given Claypool an incumbent’s advantage heading into last February’s special election, the sources said.

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