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Although Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White is still refusing to sign Burris’s certificate of appointment, he signed a certificate yesterday saying that Blagojevich’s original appointment is "true and accurate."
And after all the tough talk yesterday about how the Senate will stand firm, wait for Blago to be impeached, and only accept an appointment from Lt. Governor Pat Quinn, it looks like Dick Durbin is doing the el-foldo:
Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin says a subtle maneuver late yesterday by Roland Burris and his attorneys may be enough to get the former Illinois Attorney General seated in the U.S. Senate.
[]
Burris’ attorneys are touting that signature even though it’s not on the right piece of paper. Senator Durbin is the assistant majority leader in the Senate. He says the move by Burris may be enough to satisfy the Senate, though he stresses Senate lawyers will have to review it.
This is a complete reversal from what Durbin said less than less than twenty-four hour ago.
Last Tuesday, when Roland Burris made his trip to the Senate, David Shuster pointed out someone standing at his side — William Jeffress. Shuster noted that it was like old home week for CIA leak veterans who had watched Jeffress in court doing battle with Fitzgerald during the Libby trial. Jeffress is top notch, and, at the end of the trial, there were a few of us wondering whether the verdict would’ve been the same if Jeffress, and not Ted Wells, had been the lead counsel.
As I mentioned yesterday, Durbin and Reid seem to be getting some questionable legal advice, but Roland Burris is not.
I’m still shaking my head after reading the Politico article that recounts how Senate Democrats sent a "strongly worded letter" to Blago telling him he should step down and they wouldn’t seat any appointment he made. "After sending their letter, Senate Democrats thought the matter would then fizzle away."
Right.
Meanwhile, as Marcy Wheeler notes, it looks like Blago’s attorneys were at the very same time actively seeking to exonerating Blago from charges that he attempted to sell the Senate seat by orchestrating wiretaps with both Danny Davis and Burris where there was no quid-pro-quo involved in an appointment.
It’s downright scary to think that Reid and Durbin do politics for a living.
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Jane!
Heard you were going to visit Howie this week – how’d it go?
I wish I could say I’m interested in this circus anymore. But I’m not. Blago played all those dumasses like a collective broken fiddle factory. The whole thing is pathetic.
Lame-o.
Because their strongly worded letters have worked such magic in the past?
At least we know that Dick “Lieberman votes with us on everything except the war” Durbin is ready to step into Harry Reid’s shoes should that ever be necessary. What a strange world they live in.
Oh what fools these
mortalsSenators be!Don’t the folks in Washington often look down their noses at folks in the middle of the country (Flyover people) and consider us rubes?
Looks to me like the “rubes” in Illinois have pwned the DC Elites about as well as it can be done.
The distaste for Reid (and to an extent on this issue, Durbin) comes across on a number of blogs as awfully personal. Not sure how helpful that is to changing the way the Senate is run, but I don’t want to be seen as one of those internet scolds who wants everyone to be nice to everyone.
Reid really does suck as a majority leader, as he’s proven over the last two years. What is completely dumbfounding, of course, is how obvious it is there was no strategy for dealing with Blagovich’s appointment, no gaming out the scenarios. While Bush and the GOP like the “nobody could have foreseen” excuse to wave away their failures, it really does seem like that’s an accurate description of Senate Democrats. You’d think after they realized the GOP was stealing their computerized documents (which was a wtf moment for me, letting the opposition run your systems) they’d have awakened to the big world. But I guess not.
It’s maddening to see how poorly the only decent political party in this country is run.
when i heard this i knew there was a big problem with burris. heck, mebe ol reid was right in the first place. does reid have a higher sec clearence than durbin? someone has been talkin to fitz. burris is dirty, imo. didn’t think so at first. this changes everything.
So what bullshit argument are the dems going to use to refuse to seat this guy now? The main trouble is- they don’t have a valid legal reason to refuse him a seat. He was appointed by a sitting governor according to state law and he is qualified under the constitution. Seems to me that they have to seat him. It ain’t OPTIONAL.
the more i learn about dem thinkin the more i am leaning toward term limits fer these bozos (sandero). we got ta protect the people some way.
Don’t you think this whole thing is about politics and not what is the right thing. They know they don’t have a leg to stand on if this goes to court. They are just doing this dance so the rethugs don’t and they can say we did what we could while Burris plays the squeaky clean public servant.
238 hrs & 7 min
right now they can go by the letter of the senate procedure in this case which states cirt signed by il sos. period.
I’m not sure that Chicago counts as “flyover country”.
Many’s the time I’ve WANTED to fly over O’Hare- but ended up on the ground there- sometimes LITERALY on the ground- tryin to sleep on the floor.
Actually, the fact that they do politics ‘for a living’ is the problem.
with the durbin tern i don’t think it is politics now. burris is dirty, imo.
Dems are worried about two things:
The voters HATE Blogo and don’t want his pick seated (the IMMEDIATE political problem) and
They figure that a gooper might beat Burris in an election causing them to lose a seat (the REAL political problem)
The legal bullshit is just that.
Thanks Jane.
digg
Tradition is fine and dandy as long as it doesn’t conflict with law and the constitution but in a confrontation between senate traditions and the constitution the senate can take their traditions and shove em where the sun doesn’t shine.
238 hrs & 2 min
The proof for this guilty judgement is what?
237 hrs and 59 min
of course, but only after scotus rules. until then we got senate in control. i still think new info from fitz says burris is dirty thus this switch. nothin else makes any sense ta me.
Why do you think that?
Does it make sense that these guys have seen the recent polls and that they’re afraid of pissing off voters? Would that explain anything?
the senior senator from il does an about face late in the game. he has just come into possetion of some juicy info and he is protectin his political hide. wait and see.
It was obvious to me at the outset that like it or not, Blagojevich had the legal authority to appoint Burris and I am a how do you say… imbecile.
Evidently, the Senate Majority Leader and suckling Dick Durbin rank somewhere below that in terms of legal expertise.
Gallup:
.
“As you may know, the Senate reconvenes this week. How do you think the Senate should handle the situation when Roland Burris arrives to fill the open Illinois Senate seat? Should the Senate allow Burris to fill the seat or block Burris from filling the seat?” Options rotated
.
Allow Burris
To Fill Seat Block Burris Unsure
%
%
%
1/5/09
27
51
21
51% want the senate to block Burris- only 27% want him seated.
I think there is real palpable anger (I know I feel it myself) that the thing they finally get up on their hind legs about is ego, Senate prerogative and their own club.
They did none of this on FISA, the war, Senate subpoena, torture. Reid couldn’t even use procedure to bring the war budget under congressional supervision, and kept funding it through supplementals.
They were supposed to be our hope, but Bush couldn’t have trashed the country so thoroughly without their complicity.
This is the stuff of parody. On the TV show Arrested Development, we had some fun with the “strongly worded letter.”
Well they was bluffing- they got called and now they are in the process of folding.
a poll of voters changes the situation? sure. imagine how durbin would look if/when burris goes ta jail. he has changed his mind against the legally appointed jr senator from his own state. if you don’t think that decision came easy you don’t know the same politics that i know. we can disagree.
So a soon to be removed Governor who could care less about the interests of the people of Illinois gets to name the replacement for a seat he tried to sell and this reflects progressive ideas in what way?
that’s another reason.
Pretty hard to bluff when all your cards are showing.
“Durbin Folding on Burris? Already?”
Jane..wrong is never right…one of your main assest is your ethics, you have stuck to your guns, a solid foundation to your argument to seat Burris has stood up to a lot of political manuevering. Congratulations.
And more to the point you have shown the incompetence of leadership. All the Senate signed the letter not to seat Burris. DiFI said it was a legal problem that would effect appointing vacant government seats.
So Reid hands the oppostion a talking point on how incompetent Dems are in governing. Wow. His adoration of Lieberman and his committee chair. Twisting arms for the questionable bank bailout and the telecom immunity. And a long list of reaching across the aisle to placate republicans in the minority and give away political capital. Oy Evey.
Absolutely right, a painful process to watch as we usually have to see “the fold” in respect to some right wing legislation. They usually don’t even look at their hand before folding.
“After sending their letter, Senate Democrats thought the matter would then fizzle away.”
Because they have backed down every time the White House has said “Boo” they thought it was a natural reaction.
Wrong.
read the fine print. if the senate has the spine they can do whatever they want.
Right, wrong, or indifferent- it looks to me as if Burris will be seated.
betcha?
Senate? Spine? Probably the first time those two words have appeared in the same sentence.
“whatever they want”
Well here’s the problem with that. Burris ain’t the last rodeo. There are going to be a herd of appointees coming to the senate soon and whatever they do for Burris better be the same as what they do for the others. If they treat him differently they’re in deep shit.
Pathetic. Absolutely friggin pathetic. There must be lead in the Millionaires’ Club drinking water, further lowering the collective IQ of the culturally inbred.
As a resident of the state, do you know of a way to legally stop him from doing so as long as he is still the governor?
It may be wrong on all sorts of levels but that doesn’t mean there is a way to stop it form happening. Kinda like when Ford pardoned Nixon or Bush I pardoned Cap Weinberger or Clinton and Marc Rich.
It is legal although not a particularly moral and ethical act. As we have all seen, it is not an easy thing to get politicians of any stripe to do things ethically as long as they can do it legally.
Rule of law and process and all that
OK- but no money- that’s too complicated. Loser must praise the winner’s intelligence and cover self in ashes.
right. it is, how ya say, a contradiction in terms.
Another Strongly Worded Letter.
bwwwAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH! Hoooohooooo. Oh boy.
(wipes tears from eyes)
At least two more years of watching the suckitude that is Harry Reid.
perfect! ready to grovel?
once again i disagree. they will find some minutia to point to. double down?
my apologies for not reading all of the comments first, but i only have a minute so this will have to be a bit of a drive by (i will come back later to follow up). in yesterday’s thread, there was some discussion of the relevance of the impeachment proceedings and jane wrote re blago: “The grounds on which he was impeached have nothing to do with the Senate appointment, IIRC.”
i left a couple of replies deep in epu-land because that was not my understanding at all:
do i have it all wrong? am i looking at the wrong documents? this seems like something important for us (or me, if i’m the only one confused) to get straight so we’re not talking past each other.
O goody gumdrops, a Shadow Senate also! These proffers (’Peace In Our Time’) from Durbin, Reid, et al., sound exactly like what Fitz called ‘horse trading’, which he said was normal and okay. With signed letters and signed acknowledgments, it’s just like buying a new car, or like Fanucci plopping his fedora over the offer on the table.
i think the legal opinion is correct. politically it’s another story. no one wants ta be on the wrong side of this at the end. it is this positioning now that is telling.
Thus demonstrating an abject failure to recognize their opponents’ pattern of action for the last 8 years.
Dems are trying to placate public revulsion of Blagos pay to play schemes.
Going to court may be one of the options so they can wash their hands of decision and blame the courts. Either that or let Burris raise his acceptability in the publics view. They just don’t want to be viewed as capitulating to Blago.
237 hrs & 35 min
yep, and i think burris is dirty too.
I cannot say who is the right or wrong about Blago and Burris. Everything Blago touches is turned toxic. He has also been impeached and I am guessing hew will be gone sooner than later. But I am going to give Sen. Durbin some credit. He has consistently opposed The Rich Man’s Oil War in Irak. That should count for something.
http://www.swamppolitics.com/n….._more.html
http://www.uslaboragainstwar.o…..p?id=17231
http://zennie2005.blogspot.com…..lways.html
http://crooksandliars.com/2007…..ate-floor/
http://www.onthemedia.org/tran…..7/05/04/01
Appointment of a DEM to a Senate set according to IL law and the US Constitution and the Senate DEM’s deciede to fight because they have questions about the appointer and the appointee’s qualifications.
8 years of illegal wiretaps, torture, cronyism, outright theft and war based on lies courtesy of a GOP President and the Senate DEM’s bend over backwards to look the other way and in the case of wiretaps retroactively change the law to make past illegal conduct legal.
These Senate DEM’s give a standing ovation to a disgraced GOP colleague as he leaves due to a conviction for using his Senate seat for personal gain and do nothing to remove an already convicted GOP colleage and instead let him serve out the last 2 years of his term. They top it all of by doing nothing about Lieberman’s stabbing the whole party in the back and insure his power to do it again by letting him keep his Committee Chair.
They need to all go. Now. Term limits are the only way it will ever happen.
If Burris was guilty of something it would come back and bite Blago on the butt. Blago knows he is operating under a microscope. His motivation is to stay out of jail. I think that under these circumstances Blago made an appointment free of impropriety. He is not that stupid to do otherwise.
237 hrs & 26 min.
bom dia pups. I had to pop in and see what was going on in the world. sigh. Interesting that they choose to grow some gravitas against their own instead of when Bush and co were running the country into the dirt.
hope you are right.
As has been mentioned many times, Term Limits already exist in the form of elections. Each senator faces voters once every six years. Unfortunately, the bad ones keep getting re-elected just as the good ones do.
But if artificial term limits are implemented, then we wind up with the folks running things being the entrenched staffers and lobbyists (as happened in California). Unless you try to ban all lobbyists for any and all subjects and products AND try to ban all staffers from working for politicians in office for longer than a set period. That is, a term limit for staffers as well as for the politicians. Then the power would go to the entrenched bureaucracies and departments.
In other words, most all the other options available are worse than the current one if thought through to the end.
completely agree. i’m furious at reid and company too.
but that doesn’t make what blago and burris are doing right (legal and/or legitimate). and if i’m not wrong about what is included in the impeachment resolution, i don’t see how we can say that blago’s appointment of burris should be accepted without some review, for example by the senate rules committee.
And if the review shows the appointment has been made, legally, within the laws of the state of Illinois and the Constitutional requirements what then?
And from everything I have seen, although there might be some odor attached, the appointment HAS been made within all legal bounds. Which means the Senate has no leg to stand on in blocking Burris.
then that should be the finding of the rules committee, of course.
but reading the impeachment report, i have no confidence that is the case.
I see nothing in the impeachment bill that suggests any illegality in the pick of Burris. Do you?
Everyone knew the senate would have to cave in sooner or later. So the smart thing to do would be to say they don’t agree with the way it was done, but are required by law to seat Burris.
Instead, they made a circus out of speaking really loudly (or writing their very strongly worded letters with threats) and then showing their word and threats are worth nothing since they have to seat Burris anyway, after all is said and done.
As for Durbin, he was even more pathetic then Reid as he did so after everyone already realized this strategy was losing proposition all around. Perhaps he’s just playing hot potato, trying to take the blame from his buddy Reid.
Sure, kick the Burris appointment to the Senate Rules Committee for 30 days for review. The state Senate tries, convicts, and removes Blagojevich from office. Pat Quinn names someone else to the seat and the Senate Rules Committee moots the Burris nomination.
The rule of law and proper procedure have been followed and a proper candidate is named to the seat.
As a resident of Illinois, this is a lose-lose situation, with as many losses as you want to throw in.
Rod Blagojevich is the Democratic Governor of Illinois because of Republican corruption. (His predecessor is–like several earlier Governors–now in prison.)He could be succeeded by Lt Gov Quinn (D), but the Republicans have an issue to run on–Democratic corruption.
The Senate may have no choice but to seat Burris. YOu don’t want to change the laws to suit every new situation and (as some have noted) the Governor, until removed [next month?] has the right to appoint Patti Blagojevich if he wants. The only way to stop him is to remove him, and that is taking time. It stinks, but that’s the way it is.
Senator Burris (D-Blagojevich) will not have a snowball’s chance of winning an election in 2010. He can achieve the goal of splitting the Democratic vote along racial lines, if he wishes. Actually, it takes some work and skill NOT to split Illinois’s Democrats along ravial lines.
And do not think that the very strong Democratic vote in 2008 will guarantee a Democratic Senator in 2010. Obama was elected, in large part, because of the disarray and divorce record and abuse charges and changes among the Republican candidates in 2004. It was quite a circus.
Now we are the circus. And if the recent weeks are any indication, Senator Burris (D-Burris) will continue the show until it crashes in 2010. Maybe the Repubs will put up a candidate that I could support . . . (Nah!)
It’s very sad.
And then Burris files suit in fed. court saying that his was a proper and timely appointment and that the senate and IL coluded to deprive him of his legitimate seat. Additionally in his filing he requests the court to block the seating of the subsequent nominee.
237 hrs & 6 min
Do you really think the process would play out like that? More likely, Burris is in court suing to be seated as he had a legal appointment, duly presented with the proper certification from the governor who made the appointment and the SoS (who has now stated that he will sign a certification).
And I think Lizard Brain Chuck Schumer is now the head of the Rules Committee and somehow I doubt he is going to let himself get caught in the middle of all this.
As ome folks were suggesting yesterday, the very best and least painful action may be for Quinn to say that if he were to become Gov, he would appoint Burris. Ideal? Of course not. But it getws the issue out of the way then you can go about finding someone in Illinois to run against Burris in ‘10 and defeat him.
Burris can do whatever he wants. But as I keep trying to point out this is a political not a judicial process so the rules are different. As long as the Senate plays according to its rules, and a review can be part of that, then Burris has no recourse. Parliamentary maneuvers are part and parcel of what legislatures do. Any effort that Burris made in the courts would fail because the Senate had not violated its process and the voters of Illinois would get an untainted Senator.
Just seat the bitch already.
Roland Burris should be seated by the Senate as soon as fucking possible. Why? Because Reid and Durbin and the rest of the clown college fucked this episode up like the last Seinfeld.
Blago played them like an old tin whistle. Admit it, take your lumps – again – and move the fuck on.
Jesus H. Christ esq. we have a hellova lot of goddamn work to do. This shit is taking up valuable time.
Fuck me to tears, these assholes have no goddamn sense of reality.
Seating Burris does not serve the interests of the people of Illinois. If we are all good government progressives, why are we so eager to accept something like this that stinks to high heaven?
Problem: Burris is dirty with “loans” that don’t have to be paid back and won’t be paid back. What, let’s just overlook this?
I’m not too pleased with a lot of senators. I just want there to be a full complement of them in order for the machinery of law-making to work. He has been appointed, now seat him and get to work.
“Don’t the folks in Washington often look down their noses at folks in the middle of the country (Flyover people) and consider us rubes?
Looks to me like the “rubes” in Illinois have pwned the DC Elites about as well as it can be done.”
Not if all this was a self-inflicted wound deliberately designed to make the Democrats look weak. Letting some small-time thug wriggle off the hook – and one of their own, no less – sends a very clear message to the country at large: “We’re useless. Don’t expect anything to change and sure as shit don’t expect us to investigate GOP crimes while we’re in charge. This is the end result of that.”
Watching all this kabuki, the message I got came across Loud and Clear: The Dem “leadership” is signalling to the Village that they have nothing to worry about with the upcoming Administration. It’s not incompetence; it’s complicity disguised as incompetence. Deliberate, managed failure has been the Dems’ modus operendi for at least the past 30 years. They’re not about to change now.
Quotes from Hugh:
Please address this issue: The law in Illinois provides that the governor appoints the senator to complete the open term. How is it then ‘good government progressive’ to demand that the law be disobeyed? Is it a characteristic of the ‘good government progressive’ to reject the rule of law whenever that is politically embarrassing? Or do we embrace the rule of law for everyone, including ourselves?
Here’s why Roland Burris did not receive a legitimate appointment to the Senate:
Through his attorney, Rod Blagojevich publicly stated that he would not appoint a person to the open seat while he remained under a cloud. Based on that notification, the people of Illinois (& the boneheads in the Senate) had a reasonable expectation that Blago would not appoint anyone, and that if the cloud were not removed timely, he would make other arrangements for the people to be represented (like ceding the power to appoint to the Lieutenant Governor); i.e., an arrangement that was in the best interest of the people. By his own attorney’s statement, Blago ceded his power to appoint until such time as the cloud was removed. Since the cloud remains, Blago’s power to appoint has not been restored.
Roland, Baby, you are not the Junior Senator from the State of Illinois. Sorry about the tombstone thing.
If Dick Durbin could get that concept thru his thick head, maybe he wouldn’t have to change his position daily.
The Constant Weader at http://www.RealityChex.com
Did Blagojevich put that statement in writing that he was giving up the power of appointment? If not, then it is just the word of his attorney trying to spin a reporter and worth about that much.
If it ain’t in writing with a notarized signature, it ain’t real.
Again you are trying to make a political matter into a legal one. It isn’t good government to allow a corrupt pol to appoint a crony no matter how “legal” it is supposed to be. That’s how we got a lot of the idiots that have been destroying the government the last 8 years. And that’s the point Blagojevich isn’t your run of the mill corrupt. He’s so corrupt that the legislature is going through the extremely rare process of trying, convicting, and removing him from office. It was his attempts to sell the Senate seat that started the impeachment proceedings. Because the legislature deferred to Fitzgerald, this will not be the focus of his trial however. But Blago was so corrupt that they found without difficulty 13 other charges to lay against him.
As I have outlined above, Burris a political hack and the illegitimate candidate of a crooked governor can be denied the seat and it can be done in a way which observes Senate rules and is in accordance with the law.
I have no idea where the thought that Burris’ already vested appointment just disappears under the lame idea of just referring everything to the “Senate Rules Committee” and idly playing things out. Can someone point me to that? Because I am not seeing it. The appointment has been made, the fucking Senate should not get to petulantly run out the clock until they can find an alternative way they personally find more acceptable. This would be one of the most horrendous precedents ever imaginable as far as abuses of procedure and law. How the hell can you in good faith think this is an appropriate precedent to set? Wow. The shortsidedness of this view by people that maintain it is beyond stunning.
Is ignoring the Constitution and having some cabal of petty power hungry Senators in DC abrogate the crystal clear edicts of Illinois state law and prerogative really the precedent you want to leave on the books for further mischief, probably to be used by Republicans against Democrats, in the future really a good idea? Really? Freaking stunning ignorance if it is.
Exactly where do you get the idea that some arcane Senate rule, that has now basically been gutted by the 17th Amendment and Powell v McCormack, trumps the US Constitution and Illinois law? This is madness, madness madness.
Hey blogwhore dude. You have bad facts and bad law. Try again later when you are more prepared.
in hr1671, there are 13 charges, but the very first one is on the senate appointment and in the final committee report (from thursday) there are multiple pages on it. (links @46. i went back and checked, and this sure looks like the resolution that was voted on yesterday.
so i don’t see how the legislature has deferred to fitz – wouldn’t that charge have been removed before voting to send it to the senate? i haven’t read everything carefully, and i certainly haven’t been following the details, so i expect i just have something wrong – but i can’t seem to figure out what it is.
It would perhaps help your case if you presented an argument instead of a rant. So many bad things done by the Bush Administration were justified under cover of law. The assertion alone was and has largely proved to be sufficient to ward off any serious legal challenge to them. The same approach is being applied to the Burris nomination.
Blagojevich is a little like Bernie Madoff. He has been caught redhanded in illegality. But pending his trial, I suppose it would be OK for Madoff to open another hedge fund and defend himself by saying that this one really is above board. And if regulators said no to him, I hope you would defend him just as strongly as you defend Blagojevich and Burris.
Gee folks remember when Durbin was thought of as a good progressive senator.Now he is seen as just another of the Senate gas bags,I guess that’s what rubbing up to Harry Reid will do for ya!
Thanks for looking that up. I was working off reports from the impeachment committee. They had not received the tapes from Fitzgerald so I thought they backpedaled on that charge. Thanks again for the correction. It just reinforces the point that the not only the original process was tainted but because of that original taint any subsequent action taken with regard to it.
I should add that my understanding of the Powell case is that it turned on the fact that while Powell might be tainted the process by which he was elected was not. This is the opposite of the present case where it is the process that is in question (although my opinion of Burris is pretty low) and not the individual.
I am also surprised that after all the years we have seen parliamentary manuevers used to produce bad results we are now told that these should not be used even if they produce a good and legal result.
Durbin is a good liberal Senator but that doesn’t mean I and others can’t disagree with him or criticize him. I still remember Durbin courageously describing Gitmo as a gulag and being forced to apologize for that comment. I wish we had had his back more then.
I also disagree with icons like Feingold. And I was just thinking today about what issues I disagreed with liberal economists like Krugman and Stiglitz on where I think they drank the koolaid but overall I would rather have their voices out than not have them (and both have been doing good work recently).
Just for the record, here is the first article of impeachment from selise’s link.
thanks – that’s why i was so surprised when jane wrote that grounds for impeachment had nothing to do with the senate appointment when it seems to be a big part of it. for me the issue has been mainly that the process it self looks crooked – i think this is what you are also saying?
given that blago is being impeached for abuse of power wrt to the senate appointment, i just don’t get why the right thing to do is to ignore that (at least, that’s what i think the argument is).
Although everyone here seems to expect otherwise, it is still possible that impeachment of Blagojevich will fail. Now nobody can fill Obama’s seat until impeachment proceedings reach a conclusion. Any idea how long this will take?
I didn’t notice anyone here saying that seating Burris was an example of America at its most noble or its most inspiring. What I heard was, this is the least bad option, and we’re making things worse by playing Blagojevich’s game for him.
Here is a quote from the Illinois Supreme Court in Friday’s ruling that appears to clear the way for Burris to be seated legally: “Moreover, no explanation has been given as to how any rule of the Senate, whether it be formal or merely a matter of tradition, could supercede the authority to fill vacancies conferred on the states by the federal constitution.”
Another quote: “We note, however, that nothing in the published rules of the Senate, including Rule II, appears to require that Senate appointments made by state executives pursuant to the seventeenth amendment must be signed and sealed by the state’s secretary of state.”
A lot of talk back and forth about this, but the question that comes to mind is what do the Dems get out of this very public and ugly fight? Nothing. It doesn’t accomplish the people’s work any. It doesn’t advance any agenda. And now that the Illinois Supreme Court has stated the obvious, there’s no real reason to continue this charade.
What should follow on Monday is a very short and direct statement from Reid, Durbin, and company indicating that they are disappointed with the taint in Burris’ appointment since the Illinois governor was arrested for statements made in the appointing process of this very seat, but that the court has ruled that the appointment is legal and we’ll welcome Mr. Burris into the Democratic Caucus despite our disappointment. But we know the Dems… they’ll screw even this up.