Last night, the Illinois House unanimously passed a resolution launching their impeachment inquiry, while deferring the question of whether to strip Gov. Blagojevich of his power to appoint Barack Obama's U.S. Senate successor.  Pressed about the issue on MSNBC this morning, Speaker Michael Madigan cited the "divisions in our caucus" over the issue and the concerns about cost.  However, during a separate interview with Carol Marin on WTTW last night, he emphasized that the special election prospect is "still under consideration."  Watch the MSNBC appearance:

There are plenty of legitimate concerns about the proposed special election: the cost to taxpayers, the chance of a Republican taking the seat, and as Jeff Smith pointed out over at Prairie State Blue, the risks of an abbreviated timeline.  But while public officials such as Jan Schakowsky and Lisa Madigan have gone on the record in support of a special election, we've yet to see any prominent Democrat publicly state their opposition.  As yesterday's deferral showed, there are numerous Dems who want to see an appointment from Quinn -- they're just not ready to own that position in public.

As an aside: is it just me, or does Speaker Madigan seem to be having a bit too much fun with this whole situation?  As the video shows, he repeated three times how he stood in opposition to Blagojevich, "many times alone." (He did much the same during the WTTW interview last night.)  He makes it sound as if his feud with the governor over the past couple years -- which ground state government to a virtual halt -- was a purely principled stand, one based entirely on his own ethical standards.  But let's not forget that politics surely played into his positioning as well, specifically the prospect of his daughter running for governor in 2010.