The Chicago Sun-Times reports today that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel asked then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich to appoint a Cook County commissioner to Emanuel’s House seat. Blagojevich claims in a new book that Emanuel wanted to be able to run again in 2010 or 2012.
But House members, unlike senators, can never be appointed. Instead, they must be elected — it’s written into the Constitution.
So how could it be that Emanuel — who served in the House for six years and was chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — didn’t know that?
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews posed the same question to Blago himself last week, to which Blago replied, “I think you’re giving me and Rahm too much credit. It’s not like we know the Constitution backwards and forwards without talking to lawyers.”
For what it’s worth, the county commissioner in question, Forrest Claypool, denied it. “Knowing Rahm, I can’t believe that because that’s silly,” he said. “That is insanity. Never happened. Never would. Never discussed. Insanity. False.”
