No details yet, but it looks like "Tombstone" will get to sit after all.
Update: OK, not quite, but either the Majority Leader blundered today, or he blundered yesterday. It's not easy to tell.
I have gone on the record in my opinion that both Roland Burris and Rod Blagojevich are unqualified hacks not fit for public office. I've further gone on the record saying Blagojevich should not have appointed anyone to fill Obama's U.S. Senate seat after being arrested for corruption last month, and that anyone accepting such an appointment would remove all doubt as to the appointee's vanity, stupidity, and lack of qualification for the office.
The sad fact is, though, nothing has persuaded me that either the U.S. or Illinois constitutions can undo what the only governor we have has done. Though the Burris appointment offends every inkling of public duty that I have, and though I wish a speedy and bi-partisan impeachement upon the governor's ass, I can't escape the idiocy that has befallen my beloved state. So I'm with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA): seat the idiot already. (Though I don't agree with Feinstein's implication that "seasoned and experienced" are necessarily qualifications for office.)
On the other hand, given the enormous Karmic shifting that allowed the (probably) only clean politician in Chicago to become President of the U.S., I suppose Illinois is in for quite a beating. Just look at history: we produced Grant and fostered Lincoln, which was balanced by the unbelievable corruptness of Grant's administration and the scandals that led to the entire world (except the U.S.) observing May 1st as Labor Day in observance of the Haymarket riots just a few years later. Let's not even talk about The Jungle, yes?
My bottom line: If Burris wants to end his political life (and carve another line into his tomb) as U.S. Senator, fine. But let's get some actual contenders running in the 2010 Democratic primary (like, for instance, my law school classmate Lisa Madigan), and let's get Pat Quinn into the Governor's Mansion, before even Hugo Chavez thinks we're incorrigible.
Via Paul Krugman, imagine what would have happened had the Greedy Old Party (GOP) succeeded in pushing through Social Security privitization. But why imagine? We can just look at Italy:
Italy did for retirement financing what President George W. Bush couldn’t do in the U.S.: It privatized part of its social security system. The timing couldn't have been worse.
The global market meltdown has created losses for those who agreed to shift their contributions from a government severance payment plan to private funds meant to yield higher returns. Anger is rising both at the state, which promoted the change, and money managers such as UniCredit SpA and Arca Previdenza, which stood to profit.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's administration is now considering ways to compensate as many as 1.2 million people who made the switch, giving up a fixed return for private plans linked to financial markets. It's also letting people delay redemptions on retirement funds to avoid losses after Italy's benchmark stock index fell 50 percent in 2008, destroying €300 billion ($423 billion) in wealth.
Oops. Keep in mind, a lot of people got rich on the program: the people selling the investments.
On a much smaller scale, let's keep this example of privatizing a necessary government function in mind when the Chicago street parking privatization blows up in scandal a few years from now.
Even though the final vote count in the Minnesota U.S. Senate race put Franken 225 votes ahead last night, incumbent Norm Coleman asked the state Supreme Court for one last chance to count an additional 900 ballots. Today the court said, unanimously, "bugger off, you right prat." OK, they were more polite than that:
The record before us with respect to petitioners' motion demonstrates that local election officials have acted diligently and in accordance with our orders, and together with the candidates have agreed upon more than 900 rejected absentee ballots, which have now been opened and counted by the Secretary of State's office.
...
Because the parties and the respective counties have not agreed as to any of these additional ballots, the merits of this dispute (and any other disputes with respect to absentee ballots) are the proper subjects of an election contest under Minn. Stat. ch. 209.
In other words, Franken won, you already agreed to the procedure that solidified his win, and anyway your term expired last night so pack it in and go back to Long Island, you sodding wanker.
Again, I may be editorializing here...
In related news, the best governor Illinois has will not be going to Washington to help his own Mr. Smith get past the Capitol police tomorrow. Can't think why not.
The Senate adjourned Friday after playing "work-to-rule" to prevent the President from making recess appointments for almost two years:
Among the many standoffs between congressional Democrats and Bush, the issue of interim appointments was one -- possibly the only one -- where Democrats truly had the upper hand under the Constitution.
Earlier this decade, annoyed that Senate Democrats were stalling his nominees to the appeals courts, Bush used his so-called recess appointment authority to name controversial selections such as Charles Pickering and William Pryor to the federal bench when Congress was on one of its many breaks. Such appointees get to serve out the remainder of the year in which they were appointed and until the end of the congressional session the following year.
So with the session never legally in recess, the President couldn't make recess appointments. QED.
The 111th Congress opens tomorrow, and Thursday, Barack Obama will be certified the next President.
The Minnesota Canvassing Board is expected tomorrow to declare Democrat Al Franken the winner of the state's U.S. Senate election by a margin of 225 votes:
It took only an hour Saturday afternoon for election officials to count 933 absentee ballots that all sides had agreed were wrongly rejected. Franken won 52 percent of them and Coleman captured 33 percent (the rest went to other candidates or cast no vote in the Senate race). It was a surprisingly muscular margin that was reflected in the glum looks of Coleman staffers and the satisfied appearance of Franken's staff.
Franken started the day with an unofficial lead of 49 votes. He achieved a net gain of 176 votes on Saturday.
Republican Norm Coleman vowed to fight on, even though other Senators have already accepted Franken's victory.
That, I believe, is 59, once future Illinois Governor Pat Quinn appoints a Democrat to Obama's seat.
Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and Roland Burris are racing each other to some resolution as the only governor we have—the commander in chief of the state militia—loses his security clearance:
Officials Friday said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has revoked Gov. Rod Blagojevich's access to classified federal security information.
Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero called the move "pretty standard procedure" Friday. He says there are still a number of other state officials with access.
Also Friday, Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan said he is calling lawmakers back to Springfield next week for a possible vote on impeaching Blagojevich.
Crain's has more:
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich could be impeached as early as next week.
The Illinois House has changed its schedule and will meet several days next week.
A spokesman for House Speaker Michael Madigan says the chamber may vote on a recommendation from the special committee studying whether Blagojevich should be impeached.
The San Francisco Chronicle's columnist is particularly funny—and scathing—today:
To my mind, even the softest portrait of W merely raises the larger question, perhaps not to be fully answered for many years: How could such a mediocre and unimaginative human cause so much damage? How could this frat house daddy's-boy dullard so perfectly undermine America's fundamental identity and disfigure every major department of government and bring the nation to its knees? Indeed, unpacking that one may take awhile.
Other questions, though, are not so difficult. Questions like: Has it really been all that bad? Have we been too hard on the poor schlub? Does Bush really deserve such white-hot derision and international contempt? Or is he just lost and misunderstood, like a sad clown with a big shotgun and an unfortunate muscle spasm? I think we can all answer those without the slightest hesitation.
17 days, 21 hours, 50 minutes left...
We start 2009 continuing the ridiculous story of the governor's strenuous efforts to ensure a Republican majority in 2010. Today's Tribune outlines what might happen next week in Washington:
If Burris shows up Tuesday to claim the seat given to him by disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the outcomes range from a denial of entry to a limbo where he can hire staff but not vote.
Should Burris appear in Washington without that certification, armed police officers stand ready to bar him from the Senate floor, said a Democratic official briefed on Senate leaders' plans. Leadership also is considering the possibility of Blagojevich appearing in person to escort Burris. Ironically, the scandal-plagued governor would be allowed onto the Senate floor, because sitting governors are allowed floor privileges, while Burris would not without certification.
Can anyone extrapolate from the Three Stooges'[1] press conference what we'd be in for should armed police bar a black Senator-designate from the all-white Senate, never mind the legitimacy of the action? Whoo boy.
Tribune columnist Steve Chapman is also worth a read today, especially for those unfamiliar with Burris and his, um, eccentricities:
Burris is the prototypical time-serving career politician who owes his success to being simultaneously ambitious and bland. He has never been one to challenge the status quo, but no one underestimates his self-esteem. The two Burris children, after all, are named Roland and Rolanda.
The result of his immodesty has been a persistent hunger for offices that most people thought beyond his abilities. He has lost races for mayor of Chicago, U.S. senator, and governor (three times).
Burris' chief claim to fame until this week was his 12-year term as state comptroller, a job whose significance can be measured by the fact that few Illinoisans could identify the current occupant (Dan Hynes). Even among accountants, Burris left few strong impressions, but he also never gave any prosecutor grounds to indict him, which is not something Illinois voters take for granted.
[1] With the governor as Shemp.
As Josh Marshall said today, did Tom Wolfe do the rewrite on the Blagojevich scandal? Now we've got Bobby Rush, Roland Burris, and Jesse Jackson Jr., all reprising the greatest hits of the '70s. Exhibit A, from Rush:
"Let me just remind you that there presently is no African-American in the Senate...this is just not a state of Illinois matter," he said. "I would ask you to not hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer."
Exhibit B, from a galaxy far, far away:
In an appearance just now on MSNBC, Burris was asked about the possibility of the Senate refusing to seat him. "Well, I think you will see a major outcry from the people of Illinois," Burris said, "based on the fact that the governor has appointed me."
Exhibit C, from the Office of the President-Elect:
I believe the best resolution would be for the Governor to resign his office and allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place. While Governor Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy.
Apparently, all this is even too much for Blagojevich's lawyers to swallow.