SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Once Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested, Illinois lawmakers scrambled to begin the job of removing him from office. But they could have tried that long ago, or taken smaller steps to rein in a governor known at the state Capitol as a "madman" and dictator.

Talk of impeachment began in the summer of 2007 but never had support from more than a handful of lawmakers. A move to let voters consider recall of unpopular officials was scuttled by a Blagojevich ally in the state Senate.

Formal investigations of the governor's management — something along the lines of congressional inquiries into the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina — were rare and largely toothless.

And legislation restricting Blagojevich's prodigious fundraising from state contractors was blocked until last fall by Blagojevich's guardian angel, Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago.

Even after Blagojevich's arrest, the Legislature's Democratic leadership decided against trying to strip the governor of his power to appoint a new senator. Blagojevich cited that inaction when he named Roland Burris to the Senate, triggering a national furor.

Republicans accuse Democrats of protecting one of their own.

"The governor that they are impeaching today is the same exact governor whose policies they were carrying yesterday," said Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon. "After the governor was put in shackles by the U.S. marshals, that's when they decided they'd had enough."

But Republican lawmakers continued to work with Blagojevich long after his legal and management problems came to light. They weren't much louder than Democrats in calling for legislative action against the governor.

Money provides one illustration of the complex partisan relationships. When the governor decided to punish his enemies, he slashed projects requested by House Democrats and Senate Republicans but spared projects for House Republicans and Senate Democrats.

Some legislators note that when they did try to restrict Blagojevich — for instance, with a law giving a legislative panel veto power over his administrative rules — the governor simply ignored them.

"We were dealing with a renegade," said Rep. Jack Franks, a Woodstock Democrat who has been among the governor's fiercest critics over the years. "We could pass laws, but if someone is going to ignore them, we need someone who's going to enforce them. That's where the attorney general and U.S. attorney step in."

Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on federal charges that he tried to benefit from appointing a new U.S. senator, demanded campaign contributions in exchange for state services and more. The Illinois House impeached him last week and the Senate will now hold a trial to determine whether he is thrown out of office.

The impeachment charges go beyond the new criminal allegations.

They include management decisions the governor made as far back as 2003, his first year in office: Spending $2.6 million on flu vaccine that couldn't be imported into the United States, paying hundreds of thousands in questionable expenses to companies that were supposed to help cut government costs and finding ways around veterans-preference laws so political allies could get state jobs.

But these actions, considered impeachable offenses now, didn't stop House Speaker Michael Madigan from serving as co-chairman of Blagojevich's 2006 re-election campaign. Nor did they stop Illinois voters from giving Blagojevich a second term.

"The voting public has to wear this collar as well," said Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro.

One government watchdog hesitates to blame lawmakers for not doing more.

The Legislature has so many members and so many duties that uniting behind a challenge to the governor is almost impossible until something happens — like an arrest by the FBI — to make action inevitable, said David Morrison, assistant director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform.

What's more, Morrison said, Illinois government already was suffering near-paralysis because of feuds between the governor and lawmakers. A direct confrontation — particularly if the Senate president had refused to take action against his friend — could have provoked an all-out crisis.

"The way the branches (of government) are interrelated can make it difficult for one branch to police another," Morrison said.

In July 2007, Bost stood on the Illinois House floor and called for a committee to investigate impeaching Blagojevich, who was then calling lawmakers into daily special sessions in a vain attempt to pressure them into backing him in a budget dispute.

At the time, even Democrats were openly calling Blagojevich a madman and dictator, but the idea of impeachment wasn't taken seriously. No committee was appointed.

A year later, the impeachment talk had grown to include some Democrats. Madigan — the governor's former campaign co-chair but now his greatest nemesis — circulated a memo to legislative candidates on how to discuss impeachment in their campaigns.

Even then, the House took no action toward impeachment. Madigan says now that there simply wasn't enough support to go forward until Blagojevich's arrest last month.

Franks was one of the Democrats who endorsed impeachment. As chairman of the State Government Administration Committee, he reviewed some of the governor's more controversial management decisions. But Blagojevich's office simply refused to answer many questions, and Franks says his committee simply didn't have the time or personnel to launch major investigations.

"We don't have the subpoena power, we don't have the staff, we don't have the investigators," Franks said. "I've got one person working in my office, you know."

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Associated Press Writer Andrea Zelinski contributed to this report.

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