SPRINGFIELD, Ill. | An Illinois legislative committee unanimously recommended impeachment for Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday, setting up a vote that could make him the first governor to face such fate in the state's sordid political history.

Blagojevich should lose his job for abusing his power, mismanaging Illinois government and committing possible criminal acts, including federal allegations he tried to sell off a U.S. Senate seat, the special committee concluded.

The governor's office issued a statement calling the panel's proceedings "flawed" and "biased."

A full House vote to impeach, which could come Friday morning, would trigger a Senate trial to decide whether the second-term Democrat should be removed from office.

Many on the 21-member House committee called it "a sad day" for Illinois as they unanimously supported a full chamber vote for impeachment. But Rep. Bill Black disagreed.

"I think this is a good, glad, happy day for Illinois because it points out that nobody is above the law," the Danville Republican said. "There have been egregious abuses if half of what we read is true."

Blagojevich denies any wrongdoing and his office's statement called the panel's vote a "foregone conclusion" resulting from proceedings where his team was "never given the chance to put on any kind of defense."

The statement also assumes the full House will indeed vote to impeach.

"When the case moves to the Senate, an actual judge will preside over the hearings, and the Governor believes the outcome will be much different," it reads.

Spokesman Lucio Guerrero said earlier there was no chance Blagojevich would resign before the full House vote. Blagojevich's attorneys left the hearing before the committee voted.

Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn, who would take over if Blagojevich is ousted, said it's time for the governor to "face reality" and give up his office.

"That's what President Nixon did back in 1974 during another ordeal that our country faced. In this case, our state has been put under an ordeal for a month, it is time to put an end to it," Quinn said.

The committee's report said that the citizens of Illinois "must have confidence that their governor will faithfully serve the people and put their interests before his own. It is with profound regret that the committee finds that our current governor has not done so."

Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on federal charges that include allegations he schemed to profit from his power to name President-elect Barack Obama's replacement in the Senate.

The man Blagojevich appointed to the seat just three weeks later, Roland Burris, appeared before the committee shortly before it voted.

"There was nothing .... legal, personal, or political exchanged for my appointment to this seat," Burris testified under oath.

While the governor maintains his innocence, the report notes he did not appear before the committee to explain himself. "The committee is entitled to balance his complete silence against sworn testimony from a federal agent," it says.

The committee's report recounts the federal charges, relying on a sworn affidavit from an FBI agent describing tape-recorded conversations in which Blagojevich discussed using the seat to land a job for himself or his wife. The second-term governor also is quoted on the need to hide any evidence of a trade-off.

"The committee believes that this information is sufficiently credible to demonstrate an abuse of office of the highest magnitude," the report says.

It also lays out allegations separate from the criminal charges -- that Blagojevich expanded a health care program without proper authority, that he circumvented hiring laws to give jobs to political allies, that he spent millions of dollars on foreign flu vaccine that he knew wasn't needed and couldn't be brought into the country.

The committee finished its work as chances grew dimmer that lawmakers will get transcripts of the FBI's secret recordings of private Blagojevich conversations that allegedly include scheming to trade government action for campaign contributions.

U.S. District Chief Judge James F. Holderman on Thursday set a schedule for legal skirmishing on the issue that could run into early February.

Holderman said he was sorry the courts "aren't able to do things on the timetables others might request and I think the members of the General Assembly will understand that."

Meanwhile, Blagojevich's defense attorneys in Chicago urged Holderman to throw U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and all of his assistants off the case, charging in a motion that Fitzgerald violated rules about pretrial publicity at a Dec. 9 news conference announcing the charges.

Federal prosecutors immediately retorted that the effort was "meritless."

On the Net:

The Illinois House Special Investigative Committee's report can be found at:

http://www.ilga.gov/house/committees/reports.asp?CommitteeID758