The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that no law requires Secretary of State Jesse White to sign the appointment made by Governor Rod Blagojevich of Roland Burris to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the Senate. Despite this, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said that he is still opposed to seating Burris.
“There has never in the history of the Senate been a waiver of the requirement that the secretary of state’s signature be part of the appointment process – never,” Durbin said at a news conference.
The comments from the Senate’s second-ranking Democrat seem to suggest that Burris won’t be seated anytime soon, despite more favorable recent statements by other Senate leaders and President-elect Obama.
Blagojevich named Burris to fill the vacant seat after his December 9 arrest on federal fraud and bribery charges. Even before Burris entered the picture, Senate leaders had said they would refuse to seat anyone the corrupt Illinois governor chose.
However, many legal scholars have said that they are on shaky legal ground despite a provision in the Constitution that says “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.” Blagojevich, although very unpopular and under a cloud of corruption charges, was still the legal governor at the time of the appointment and followed Illinois state law in selecting Burris, who meets all basic age, residency, and citizenship qualifications. Should they refuse to seat Burris and he decides to take his case to court, there is Supreme Court precedent in his favor.
Durbin said the seat should not be filled until after the Illinois Senate completes its impeachment trial of Blagojevich. If the governor is convicted and removed from office, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn will take his place. He said Quinn could “then have the authority to make this appointment in a clean, legal way and make his recommendation and his appointment known to the United States Senate.”
One has to wonder why Durbin and his Democratic colleagues care so much about this one Senate seat. We’ve seen numerous corrupt politicians come and go and the democracy has survived. So why do they want so badly to stop this one appointment of an otherwise apparently clean politician with just the vaguest whiff of corruption trailing him? Is it race – as some have suggested? Is it politics? Is it just a fear of losing the seat in two years in a statewide election?
Or do they see it as an opportunity to take a stand against dirty politics, to distance themselves from the crooked ones? If so, they may wish to tone down the bluster, for those who “doth protest too much” are often the ones compensating for their own sins.
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