Will Rahm Go Back to Congress?

Rod Blagojevich may not have been the only one plotting over vacated seats in Washington. The former Illinois governor claims in his new book that he had a conversation with Rahm Emanuel, in which Obama's chief of staff reportedly told him that he wanted a "placeholder" appointed to his Chicago congressional seat so that he could reclaim it in 2010 if he left the White House. "Rahm understandably wanted to keep his options open," Blago writes. "That's what all good politicians do." But because a vacated congressional seat is filled after a vote—rather than a senate seat, which is replaced by an appointment from the governor—Blago said there wasn't much he could do. "Rahm told me that his lawyers thought there was a way where the governor might be able to make an appointment," he writes, but says that he told Emanuel that it was his understanding that he only had the power to set the date of a special election.