Governor Rod Blagojevich of the US State of Illinios has been removed from office after the state Senate unanimously convicted him on impeachment charges.
The charges include trying to sell the US Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.
The Illinois Senate, acting as a jury, voted 59-0 to oust the second-term Democrat immediately.
The lawmakers also voted by the same margin to bar him from ever holding public office again in the fifth most populous US state.
Mr Blagojevich had pleaded with the body hours earlier, asking: ‘How can you throw a governor out of office who is clamouring and begging and pleading with you to give him a chance to bring witnesses in to prove his innocence? ... A crime has not been proven here.’
He later told reporters outside his Chicago home he was ‘saddened and disappointed but not at all surprised’ by what happened.
‘It was a fixed deal from the beginning,’ he sad.
Mr Blagojevich skipped the chance to make a formal defence during the proceedings because, he said, the rules restricted him from calling the witnesses he needed or playing in full the federal government wiretapped conversations that led to charges involving Mr Obama's Senate seat.
Democratic Lieutenant Governor Patrick Quinn was sworn in as governor almost immediately, saying ‘The ordeal is over’ and urging people ‘to make the sacrifices necessary to address the serious challenges we have before us: the integrity challenge, the challenge of our economy, the challenge of making sure that we pay our bills.’
President Obama pledged full cooperation with the new governor.
