Comments on: What, Oh, What is to be Done About Burris?

By: wagonjak

wagonjak — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:25:09 +0000

oldgold (#30) I doubt Reid could get 2/3s of the Senate to throw Burris out…and I agree with everything MrToad says in #38…good ole “Fightin” Harry Reid only gets his back up opposing fellow Dems, he is spineless when it comes to opposing Republicans!

By: GaryLee

GaryLee — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:16:37 +0000

Blago has not been impeached, tried or convicted. He’s still the governor and we still live in a democracy where we are all innocent until proved guilty.

By: tam1MI

tam1MI — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:00:03 +0000

This guy says the Senate can legally not seat Burris.

Interesting argument, especially the part where he says MCCORMICK V. POWELL actually cuts against Burris’s argument to be seated.

By: reader

reader — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:44:38 +0000

Yeah, Jane, Blago is making them all look corrupt. That’s not hard, because they all are corrupt, and that’s the fucking problem.

By: jjasper

jjasper — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:03:48 +0000

Don’t kid yourself into thinking that there’s a winner here outside of the Republicans, especially when it comes to making it into a racial issue. They get the joy of watching African Americans argue about this. It’s the same thing we get when we have conservative Mormons and Baptists arguing because a Baptist called Mormonism a cult.

I get a kick out of that, Republicans are getting a kick out of this, and neither situation does anyone any good. It’s divisive crap.

Obama really needs to weigh in here with more force. His tentative “wait until the last minute and perhaps the problem will go away” tectic isn’t helping. He should meet with Burris, Reid, and other Democrats involved in this talk with them, and pick a team to publicly support all the way.

By: JClausen

JClausen — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:59:00 +0000

Well said!

By: MrToad

MrToad — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:42:16 +0000

You know, all this talk about Reid backing down? I think it’s misguided. This is _exactly_ the kind of fight that Hammerin’ Harry won’t back down from, and will fight to the bitter end. It has no Republicans involved, it has no legal backing, it hurts his own party, it’s fundamentally a lose/lose situation, and (most importantly) it’s unfathomably stupid. There’s no way that Reid could back away from such a tempting target.

By: BooRadley

BooRadley — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:27:39 +0000

Thanks.

By: douglas

douglas — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:20:50 +0000

Term limitations are idiotic. Either we trust the electorate to choose its leaders or we change our system of government. California has term limits and they have been both a disaster and a charade. We lost some of our best legislative leaders because they were termed out. But all they did then was to run for and obtain another political office. Result: often the same folks, good and bad, in new titles. Besides, what in the Wide Wide World of Sports do term limits have to do with a Senatorial appointment (of a political hack) by a governor who federal wiretaps conclusively prove tried to sell that seat for money and his own sinecure?

By: douglas

douglas — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 17:13:41 +0000

Anybody here interested in the applicable Constitutional law? The lead case involved Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. who was barred from taking his House seat by the House because of improper conduct. Now Powell was elected, and the Supreme Court stressed the sanctity of the vote, but in language that leaves little doubt that the same sanctity argument would apply to the decision of a popularly elected governor who was following the law in making an appointment. The Court also made clear that their reasoning would also apply to Senate actions. So unless the candidate does not qualify under the very limited Constitutional restrictions: age, length of citizenship, and residence, it would appear that neither the House nor the Senate has the constitutional power to bar a properly elected or appointed person from taking his or her seat.

But that’s just round one, folks. The Supreme Court spent an unusual amount of time discussing the power of either body to expell a sitting member. The Court made clear that the Senate and the House had much wider powers to determine who was unfit to continue to serve. There was some discussion suggesting that the expulsion should be for conduct committed after the person took office, but this was dicta (judicial ruminations not decisive of the opinion and therefor not binding on future courts) and the bottom line seems to be that the Senate or the House gets to decide its own criteria for expulsion. It does take a 2/3 vote, but given the way Governor Blago and political hack Roland Burris have acted, that should be an easy goal to meet.

Bottom line: Burris can completely ruin his already very limited legacy by insisting on being seated and then immediately being expelled. Or he can face reality and make a brave show of retreating for the good of the country.

I have spent thirty years analyzing legal cases, in case you wonder why you should listen to me.