Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s arrest on charges he tried to auction President-elect Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat sparked a fight over whether to remove the governor from office or limit his appointment power.

The Illinois House of Representatives is scheduled to convene Dec. 15 to consider a plan to relieve Blagojevich of his authority to fill the vacancy. The proposal, which may be approved by the House and Senate as soon as Dec. 16, would let voters pick Obama’s heir in a special election, said Steve Brown, an aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan.

Madigan, who has presided over the House for 22 of the past 25 years and heads the state Democratic Party, is at odds with lawmakers such as Republican House Leader Tom Cross who want Blagojevich impeached. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, daughter of the House speaker, introduced a third option today by asking the state’s highest court to declare Blagojevich unfit to govern and temporarily remove him from office.

“Impeachment proceedings would probably take a month or more,” said Dick Simpson, head of the political-science department at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a city alderman from 1971 to 1979. “The problem with a special election is it could take even longer.”

Under state law, the soonest Illinois voters could cast ballots would be in February for the primary vote, where Democrats and Republicans each pick candidates to face off in an April general election, Simpson said. Obama, who will be sworn in as the 44th U.S. president on Jan. 20, resigned from the Senate in November. Illinois has only one of its two senators.

Half Representation

Blagojevich, 52, has ignored calls to resign since his Dec. 9 arrest at his Chicago home for what U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called “a political corruption crime spree.” The governor and his former chief of staff, John Harris, 46, were accused of attempting to sell Obama’s Senate seat, soliciting bribes and trying to pressure the Chicago Tribune to halt critical editorials.

Illinois, which covers an area half the size of Italy and is home to 12.8 million people, will be at a disadvantage with just one senator representing the state as the Obama administration takes office next month, said Charlie Wheeler, an associate professor at the University of Illinois-Springfield.

“It’s a handicap,” said Wheeler, who has followed Illinois politics for four decades. “The state’s ability to be heard on important issues would be cut in half.”

Stalling Option

Under state law, Blagojevich has 60 days to sign or veto proposals once they’re approved by the General Assembly. Should the governor remain in office, he could thwart any call for a special election by ignoring the bill and letting it expire on Jan. 14, the date when new legislators are sworn in and unsigned proposals from the previous session fall dead, Wheeler said.

That would force lawmakers to start anew, extending the delay before voters could pick Obama’s replacement, he said.

“The best thing Blagojevich could do is resign,” Wheeler said.

Lucio Guerrero, a spokesman for Blagojevich, didn’t return a phone message left at his Chicago office.

The last person impeached by the Illinois House was Judge Theophilus Smith in 1833. State senators refused to convict him, so Smith remained on the bench, according to Patrick O’Grady, executive director of the Springfield, Illinois-based Legislative Research Unit, the research arm of the General Assembly. Illinois became a state in 1818.

Filling Senate Seat

“The priority is to restore the senatorial seat as soon as possible,” Brown, the aide to House leader Madigan, said in a telephone interview. U.S. Senate Leader Harry Reid and fellow Democrats “made it clear a gubernatorial appointment will be unacceptable” from Blagojevich, Brown said.

If Blagojevich resigns or is removed from office before lawmakers approve a special election, Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn would take the reins of government in the fifth- most populous state and assume the power to appoint a senator. A phone message left at Quinn’s Chicago office was not returned.

Lisa Madigan said she asked the state supreme court to temporarily remove Blagojevich from office to prevent him from appointing a replacement for Obama. She also said Blagojevich should be forced out because the scandal may cloud any agreements, contracts or expenditures that require his signature.

“I think people of the state would be best served if Governor Blagojevich would resign,” Lisa Madigan told reporters today. “We could all move on.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at jcarroll8@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 12, 2008 17:18 EST