Burris Is The New Palin
Roland Burris has no clue what he’s just signed up for. Obviously there will be the court cases and he may well win those. I don’t think the Senate refusing to seat a Senator is necessarily legal and I think White blocking it has even more problems–though we might as well try.
Burris is going to get picked apart like road kill by buzzards while the national and local press go through every donation, every business deal, every lobbying effort he ever made. Everything will be suspect, everything will be assumed to be dirty, and after a fairly distinguished career as a black politician who broke through many barriers (though mediocre in office), he will end his career as a joke his name will evoke derision whenever it is invoked. He’ll be a Mike Brown kind of character who is pitied as much as ridiculed for allowing himself to be put in a spot so far over his head he cannot imagine what will happen to him.
And he deserves it for taking this appointment.
December 30th, 2008 at
“…I don’t think the Senate refusing to seat a Senator is necessarily legal…”
As you know, Article I, Section 5 says different.
Burris can try to fight Article I, Section 5 in court if he wants (it is his right to do so)… but SCOTUS is full of Joe “Strict Constructionist” Sixpacks nowadays.
That said, even if by some bizarre chance he were to win such a case Reid has said the Democratic Caucus will refuse to seat any Blago appointee so Burris will have nowhere to go if he gets there. (…This from a caucus that still accepts Lieberman.)
December 30th, 2008 at
Look at the precedent with Adam Clayton Powell though–the precedent is pretty hard to argue against.
December 31st, 2008 at
Powell v McCormack was about the qualification of the individual.
Reid is basing his argument on the integrity of the process, claiming that because the current governor is alleged to have tainted the process none appointed by that process can be free of the stink.
There’s nothing in the Constitution declaring one way or another whether each chamber can take a position on the quality of an appointment to an open seat, but Section 5 does clearly state each chamber is the sole judge of the elections for its membership … a bit of gray area (can an appointment be considered to be like an election, requiring integrity and transparency in the process).
Regardless, the Powell case was about excluding a Representative-elect from ever taking a seat to which he was elected and the SCOTUS decision specifically cited that the House failed to attain the required 2/3rds majority when it voted on HR278.
Burris has been appointed, not elected, under what can politely be called a “cloud of suspicion”. And I’d have to imagine that given the entire Democratic Caucus’ public statements getting to 2/3rds will be relatively easy in this Senate, even if McConnell + Co. on the other side make the most of such a gifthorse before voting with the Dems to expel, exclude, whatever.
But I’m not a lawyer…
December 31st, 2008 at
[...] at ArchPundit, traditional media like the Chicago Tribune, national political pubs like Politico, and many others [...]