The Burris Clown Show Returns

I prefer to ignore the sad spectacle of Roland Burris, but this pathetic tape recording of the Illinois Senator pleading with Rod Blagojevich's brother to have the Governor seat him, and offering to "personally do something" for Blagojevich cannot really be ignored any further. He not only offered to raise money in exchange for the Senate seat, but he intimated that he would use his lawyer's name on some of the checks, which is a total violation of law. And while Burris never followed through and actually offered anything of value, he has had several months to disclose this new information, where he appears to be wrestling with getting around those restrictions.

This tape will actually get released, apparently, and MSNBC reported that Dick Durbin won't support Burris for re-election after this revelation. Big surprise, he's polling around 8%. But this does vindicate Durbin and Reid to an extent for wanting to block Burris in the first place. Clearly there was a taint to his appointment, as there are to all Senate appointments, in my view.

Good News For Bloggers, Rod Blagojevich Is Back In The News!

As expected, Patrick Fitzgerald indicted Rod Blagojevich and multiple aides, including his own brother, on corruption charges including (but not limited to) the selling of Barack Obama's Senate seat.

Federal prosecutors expanded their case against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich today in an indictment that drew more of his closest aides into the scandal and adds new schemes to the list of charges against him: Pocketing money funneled through his wife through a phony real estate job. Shaking down a powerful congressman. Running the state as a racket.

Coming nearly four months after federal agents roused a sitting governor out of his Northwest Side home in a predawn arrest -- and weeks after lawmakers dumped him from power -- today's indictment of Blagojevich, his brother and four former top insiders could have been anti-climactic.

Instead, prosecutors added a few more chapters to the Blagojevich saga, further pulling his family into the pay-to-play conspiracy, revealing yet more confidants had turned on him and suggesting he was intent on corruption before he was even sworn in. The indictment carries a potentially lengthy prison sentence and possible forfeiture of his family home should Blagojevich be convicted [...]

Blagojevich was indicted on 16 racketeering, fraud and extortion counts. Among the new, damaging allegations were that Blagojevich delayed a $2 million grant to a public charter school while trying to extort campaign cash from now-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and threatened to withhold future state business from financial institutions that refused to hire his wife.

Blagojevich's effort to profit, both personally and for his Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund, was so pervasive that federal prosecutors labeled the racketeering scheme the "Blagojevich Enterprise."

When you have a nickname for your stealing, you're doing a lot of stealing.

More on the attempted shakedown of Rahm Emanuel here. For the record, Emanuel rejected it, and good for him. But his involvement in the case does mean that other things may come up in the discovery phase. At this point, however, I'll stress that Rahm looks clean.

The breadth of the corruption is pretty staggering, even for Illinois. Meanwhile Blagojevich was down at Disney World yesterday. Apparently, Fitz applied RICO statutes to some of this, meaning that the Feds could confiscate Blago's property. In short, he's in big trouble.

Please Resign, Roland

This gets more pathetic every day.

U.S. Sen. Roland Burris has acknowledged he sought to raise campaign funds for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich at the request of the governor’s brother at the same time he was making a pitch to be appointed to the Senate seat previously held by President Barack Obama.

Burris' latest comments in Peoria Monday night were the first time he has publicly said he was actively trying to raise money for Blagojevich. Previously Burris has left the impression that he always balked at the issue of raising money for the governor because of his interest in the Senate appointment.

In comments to reporters after appearing at a Democratic dinner, the senator several times contradicted his latest under-oath affidavit that he quietly filed with the Illinois House impeachment panel earlier this month. That affidavit was itself an attempt to clean up his live, sworn testimony to the panel Jan. 8, when he omitted his contacts with several Blagojevich insiders.

You can read Burris' give-and-take with reporters here.

I was willing to let Burris be a lame duck who would clearly lose a primary challenge in 2010, but I don't think you can have a guy who is essentially admitting to the very quid pro quo deal that got Rod Blagojevich impeached sitting around the US Senate. This could be grounds for his removal inside the Senate, but Burris should do the right thing and spare us the agony. There's no reason for him to continue being a United States Senator.

More at MyDD.

Dance, Roland, Dance

This is the portrait of a politician whose days are numbered.

Senator Roland W. Burris of Illinois on Sunday defended his evolving descriptions of conversations he had with allies of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich in the months before Mr. Blagojevich appointed him to fill the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama.

“I did not donate one single dollar, nor did I raise any money or promise any favors of any kind for the governor,” Mr. Burris, a Democrat who was sworn in as a senator a month ago, said at a contentious news conference.

Mr. Burris tried to explain why he did not mention three phone conversations with Mr. Blagojevich’s brother — in which he now says he was asked for fund-raising help — during testimony last month before a committee of state lawmakers weighing whether to impeach Mr. Blagojevich.

“Anyone who suggests otherwise,” Mr. Burris added, “or would insinuate that my testimony in person or in writing is anything other than fully compliant with the committee and consistent with the truth is simply playing at partisan politics.”

This is pretty simple. Burris failed to disclose contacts with Blago's brother and some other allies, and did so under oath. You can call it perjury or not, but there was a failure to tell the whole truth. And just by virtue of accepting the appointment, Burris was willing to sully himself in order to get the job.

It's going to be short-lived. He'll get no support from the party establishment, who will coalesce around a primary challenger for expediency's sake. Nobody wants to defend a proxy for Blagojevich in 2010. He'll be a lame duck in a matter of months.

This Should Be Resolved Around The Time Of The Next MN-Sen Election

The never-ending saga of the Norm Coleman/Al Franken election appeared to be thrown into more uncertainty today when the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that up to 4,800 ballots may be presented by the Coleman campaign to see if they are eligible to be counted. It was one of the few rulings that have gone Coleman's way in this case, and since 4,800 ballots is far more than needed to catch up to Franken, it looked like a ray of hope for the former Senator.

Until the later ruling.

The Minnesota election court has just handed down a major ruling, completely denying Norm Coleman's motion for summary judgment that would have opened up and counted a set of roughly 4,500 rejected absentee ballots that his campaign insists were wrongly rejected and ought to be counted [...]

The upshot of the two decisions is that Coleman may argue on behalf of these voters, but there is no guarantee that they'll be counted. Instead, he'll need to argue for them one by one. And of course, the Franken campaign will have a full opportunity to cross-examine Coleman's witnesses -- many of whom have demonstrated that they in fact committed clear errors in filling out their ballots -- and to also play this same game down the road.

Specifically, the court shot down the Coleman campaign's claim that absentee voting in Minnesota should be regarded as a right, rather than a privilege, and that the four specific reasons for rejecting an absentee ballot are clear and fully binding: "A citizen who exercises this privilege can register and vote, by the terms of the law, only by complying with provisions."

As Nate Silver explains, this puts a very high burden of proof on the ballots, and "will make Coleman's rate of success very, very, very low, as opposed to merely very, very low." I would imagine that putting thousands of people before the court, subject to cross-examination, and determining if they acted within the rules of the election and their vote is eligible would be an interminably long process, and all along Minnesota is without adequate representation in the Senate.

Meanwhile, why is the media completely silent about the fact that Norm Coleman has been caught red-handed in a corruption scandal? They seem to like corruption when Democrats like Rod Blagojevich are fingered (although, in fairness, Blago is much more entertaining).

What, you say--Norm Coleman? Yes, Norm Coleman! Let me explain. The soon-to-be-former senator's scandal is pretty simple. Nasser Kazeminy, a wealthy businessman and close Coleman friend, allegedly paid him $75,000 under the table.

And by "allegedly," I mean "almost certainly." Here's how the almost certainly true alleged scheme worked. The payments to Coleman came in the form of what Tony Soprano would call a "no-show job." One of Kazeminy's companies is called Deep Marine Technology. Kazeminy allegedly ordered Deep Marine's CEO, Paul McKim, to make a series of $25,000 payments that would go to Coleman's wife. According to McKim, Kazeminy was utterly blatant. He said the reason for the payments was that Coleman needed the money and McKim should disguise them as a legitimate business transaction [...]

In Coleman's defense, he's currently just a subject of an FBI investigation, while Blagojevich has been voted out of office. And, of course, Coleman hasn't been caught boasting about his scheme. On the other hand, Coleman is accused by a Houston businessman of having actually accepted illicit funds, while Blagojevich is merely being accused of harboring an intention to sell his Senate seat.

Now consider how the two stories have fared in the national press. Blagojevich has turned into the biggest crime story since O.J. Simpson. Can you guess how many articles about the Coleman scandal have appeared in the national media? One short wire story. When I bring up Coleman's scandals with my colleagues, many of whom follow politics for a living, invariably they have little or no idea what I'm talking about.

Why the scandal is not a part of media accounts is pretty stunning.

Blagojevich, Hair Removed From Office

I'm mainly grateful that the sideshow has ended.

The Illinois state senate on Thursday convicted Governor Rod Blagojevich of abuse of power, removing him from office amid charges that he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.

More than two-thirds of the 59 senators, acting as a jury following the two-term Democrat's impeachment on January 9, voted to find him guilty, effectively ousting him from office.

Blagojevich is the first sitting governor to be impeached and removed from office since Arizona's Evan Meacham in 1988, and just the eighth overall (and the first in the history of Illinois). And it was unanimous.

Lt. Governor Pat Quinn becomes the Governor now. And the bookers of The View and Larry King Live get nervous. How will they fill the time? Hint: there is a near-depression on.

Congress Gets Its Hands On A Perfectly Good Stimulus Bill, Bungles It

This is flat wrong, and I think unconstitutional:

We’ve been scouring the $825 billion House version of the pending economic stimulus bill this morning, and here are five curious clauses we've found so far. While we're making phone calls, please contact us with any others you find.

1. Blago Out, Stimulus Bucks In

No Illinois state agency can spend stimulus money without the state legislature's approval, the bill says, until a certain "Rod R. Blagojevich no longer holds the office of Governor of the State of Illinois." Ouch. We've put a call into the governor's office to see what he thinks of this.

Adam Bonin has more on this, including the well-supported theory that this violates the Bill of Attainder clause in the Constitution, which stipulates that Congress cannot punish an individual with legislation. This amounts to bribing the Illinois Senate "jury" into removing Blagojevich to secure stimulus funding.

It also is, it seems to me, unnecessary. Blagojevich is not participating in the impeachment trial because he knows he's going to lose. There is no need for inducements to the Illinois Senate, because the only drama in that trial is whether every Senator will vote to remove Blago or whether there will be one holdout. This is just bad lawmaking.

So is this:

2. Sorry, Las Vegas

The bill specifically prohibits stimulus funding "for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, or swimming pool." No mention of roller-skating rinks.

This is only in there to rebut conservative arguments about "wasted" stimulus money, but it's absurd. Someone has to build that aquarium or zoo or golf course. That person gets a job, and spending money. Job creation is the entire POINT of the stimulus. It doesn't matter what jobs are created, in a certain sense, although jobs that are more long-term and that multiply solutions by leaving something tangible behind or contribute to, say, reducing greenhouse gases are more desirable. But eliminating projects that may be shovel-ready because of PR concerns is just bad sausage-making.

Rod Blagojevich Is On "The View" Today

Only six signs of the apocalypse to go!

...crap, almost five.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) told ABC News "that when he was deciding who would take President Obama's Senate seat he considered appointing talk show queen Oprah Winfrey."

Actually, The Other Quote Is Crazier

People are getting lotsa laughs from Rod Blagojevich's assertion that his arrest was like the attack on Pearl Harbor. And that is funny, in a "man thinks he's as important as the US naval fleet" kind of way. But I think this is even funnier:

"I'm going to fight this to the very end," he said.

But that fight, Blagojevich said, most likely won't include his appearance at the trial. The governor, along with his lawyers, say the trial rules are unfair because they bar him from calling witnesses who are likely to be called in any criminal trial later.

"I'm not going to be a party to that process," he said. "That would be a violation of my oath of office. That, to me, would be an impeachable offense."

My impeachment trial is an impeachable offense.

It's also hilarious because it's not at all true, as Blagojevich's lawyer is preparing a lawsuit to block the impeachment trial. That's kind of involving himself in the trial, isn't it?

He's Baaack

If I were Roland Burris and I wanted to become a Senator this way, I would pitch a tent outside the Senate floor and hold vigil until the Dem leaders inside wearily decide that it's too embarrassing to hold him back any longer. Especially because their legal argument has been revealed to be pretty silly.

Roland Burris may return to Washington next week to demand that he be accepted as the legitimate Senate appointee to replace President-elect Barack Obama and be sworn into office, according to a Burris adviser.

If Burris' appointment is not accepted, he will file a lawsuit challenging Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democratic leadership's refusal to seat him, the adviser said [...]

Reid and Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) have refused to seat Burris, arguing that his appointment by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was not certified by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

But on Friday night, White submitted a document to the Senate certifying Burris' appointment. White's action followed an earlier decision by the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled that Blagojevich's approval alone was all that was needed for Burris to take the seat.

This is going to end really ugly, and Blagojevich can't be removed from office fast enough to stop it. Burris has a legal claim to the seat, no matter how tainted the process is. Tying him up in court while seating a designate from Blago's post-impeachment successor Pat Quinn will probably make this situation WORSE. Just a disaster on all levels.

Out Of His Mind

Earlier today I speculated that the Senate might use the incidence of Rod Blagojevich's impeachment to stiffen their spines on the seating of Roland Burris. That's sure what it looks like:

No one can occupy the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama until the governor of Illinois is removed and a new appointment can be certified, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said Friday.

Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, was reacting to the Illinois Supreme Court's ruling denying a motion by Roland Burris that the state's secretary of state certify his appointment to the seat.

They're really sticking to the whole "the Secretary of State didn't sign the piece of paper and we can't go against tradition argument, even though the IL Supreme Court basically called it ridiculous today. But what's unsaid here is that Blago was impeached, and the Senate trial will probably be expedited, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was out on his ass in a couple of weeks. Not to mention the fact that he's being publicly insane and further tainting the appointment by making everyone aware of it.

Okay, fine, Blagojevich is clearly insane. I'm sitting here at my desk, listening to him chatter on in the background about the impeachment vote. And he's going on about how his policies let someone get a liver transplant, and should he really be impeached for that? It's like some bizarre performance art. Now he's quoting Tennyson.

No, really.



As Blagojevich swirls the bowl, Burris' hopes of getting seated do as well. Somehow, I have a sneaking suspicion that Lt. Gov. Quinn will appoint Burris, the Secretary of State will sign the order and everything will be fine.

There's A Guy Who's DISLIKED

Rod Blagojevich was impeached by the Illinois House today on a vote of 114-1. The case now moves to the State Senate for a trial, where conviction, given the House vote, is probably a certainty.

Everyone who thinks that Blagojevich is some kind of evil genius for getting the Senate to back down and seat Roland Burris needs to explain to me how that helped Blagojevich in any way. As I see it, Burris, even if he gets seated, isn't surviving a Democratic primary, now that he's become something of a laughingstock. And even if he did, the act of appointing certainly didn't endear Blago to Illinois lawmakers, in whose fate he now rests. It didn't save him from impeachment and it won't save him from indictment. There's the theory that this helped him with African-American potential jurors in an upcoming trial, but that's speculative at best. Also, the whole trial could take place in Springfield and not Chicago, which would change that calculus quite a bit.

Blagojevich is delusional and just decided to stick his fellow politicians in the eye one last time. He's no great tactician.

Meanwhile, Burris might have his own issues to deal with, after admitting he talked with the guy known as "Lobbyist #1" in the criminal complaint about a Senate appointment. I would caution those who think his seating is all but done.

Party Like It's 1999

The efforts by the right-wing to derail the nomination of Eric Holder is an object lesson in how they will press every advantage, use every trick, and enlist every argument to deliver defeats to their adversary, simply because they treat politics like the sports section, charting wins and losses. They are very effective in the minority, and with a dreadfully bumbling majority as their opponent, that effectiveness will be magnified.

Watch Arlen Specter paint Holder as a cross between Nixon and Idi Amin:

The senator, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who is the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Holder’s support of the White House’s stance on three contentious issues when he was deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration suggested that he was too willing to do the president’s bidding.

“He’s had an outstanding academic and professional record, and I acknowledge that early on,” Mr. Specter said of Mr. Holder in a 25-minute speech on the Senate floor. “But aside from these qualifications on Mr. Holder’s résumé, there is also the issue of character, and sometimes it is more important for the attorney general to have the stature and the courage to say no instead of to say yes.”

Before Tuesday, Mr. Specter had been mildly critical of Mr. Holder’s role in President Bill Clinton’s pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich. He said Tuesday that he would wait until the hearing next week to decide how he would vote, but in the Senate speech he let loose on Mr. Holder, comparing him with Mr. Gonzales in his ability to maintain independence from the president.

Mr. Specter raised questions about Mr. Holder’s role as deputy attorney general on a range of issues that included an investigation into the 1993 federal siege in Waco, Tex., that left David Koresh and about 80 of his Branch Davidian followers dead, and an espionage investigation involving a nuclear scientist, Wen Ho Lee.

Neat switch there, huh? It's Holder who is the toady for the new President, as Specter exactly the same criticisms that were launched at Abu Gonzales. What's more, Specter decided to employ the fresh "I was not consulted" criticism, much like Dianne Feinstein used to criticize the selection of Leon Panetta.

Specter said in prepared remarks Tuesday that Obama did not consult with him before choosing Eric Holder Jr. to be attorney general, and he tells Legal Times that Obama also did not consult with him or notify him before announcing four other Justice Department nominees Monday.

“History demonstrates that presidents who seek the advice of members of the Senate prior to submitting a nomination frequently see their nominees confirmed more quickly and with less controversy than those who do not,” Specter (R-Pa.) said. “A recent example is that of President Clinton who consulted with then-Chairman [Orrin] Hatch prior to nominating Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Justice Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court. Both nominees were confirmed with minimal controversy.

“In contrast, on the nomination of Mr. Holder, President-elect Obama chose not to seek my advice or even to give me advance notice in my capacity as Ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, which is his prerogative.”

Be prepared to hear that story about Orrin Hatch and Bill Clinton over and over, by the way. The new rule is that all judicial nominees, maybe all nominees, from Obama must get clearance from Republicans before going forward. That's how things work now.

And as long as we're throwing in the Feinstein/Panetta spat, why don't we connect the dots from Holder to Rod Blagojevich?

In a conference call this morning, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) continued the assault, saying that “it’s not going to be a smooth confirmation” for Holder. He evoked Holder’s very tenuous ties to embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich as reason to be suspicious of the nominee:

GRASSLEY: It signals that it’s not going to be a smooth confirmation. It doesn’t signal that he may not be confirmed. … [H]e was a counsel or at least Governor Blagojevich had sought to have him involved with something with race tracks in Illinois and casinos, I think. And so we’re trying to get freedom of information on that because we need to know what the relationship is with Governor Blagojevich. And I don’t say that in denigrating in any way except Governor Blagojevich’s recent troubles raises questions with anybody that’s had a relationship with him. … [I]t’s not going to be smooth sailing.

Ironically, just minutes before asserting that “anybody that’s had a relationship” with Blagojevich “raises questions,” Grassley insisted that the Senate must seat Blagojevich-appointed Roland Burris. “He’s got a perfect right to have that seat,” Grassley said.

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little Democrats.

It's just a matter of time before all the Justice Department nominees are called out for being insubstantial yes-men with ties to corrupt cronies. And if that doesn't work, conservatives can always play the Terri Schiavo card.

Conservatives are now brushing off the Schiavo case to use it against Thomas Perrelli, President-elect Obama’s pick for the no. 3 spot at the Justice Department. Right-wing websites are outraged at Obama’s association with Perrelli, since he was one of the lawyers who represented Michael Schiavo, who wanted his wife’s feeding tube removed. The Washington Times today reports that these conservatives are now gearing up to fight Perrelli’s nomination:

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, derided Mr. Perrelli’s selection as “just another death-peddler Obama has added to his list of nominees.” She said he’s earned the nickname among pro-lifers of “Piranha Perrelli” for his work on the case.

Tom McClusky, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council, said several end-of-life issues could make their way to the federal level in the next four years and having Mr. Perrelli at the department means pro-life causes would have a tougher time winning those debates.

“If the Justice Department isn’t going to do anything about it, the states, what’s to stop them from cases like Schiavo and even worse cases,” Mr. McClusky said.

Now, not all of these are cause for alarm - if the right wants to relitigate the deeply unpopular Schiavo case, by all means, they should go ahead. And I cannot say with certainty that Holder's actions with respect to Marc Rich or any of these other golden oldies was completely laudatory - I would suspect it was less than that. But that's hardly the point, even for conservatives - in the end, their strategy is to chip away at Obama's legitimacy and the legitimacy of his cabinet appointments, in particular Holder. And even if it doesn't pay off until months or even years into the future, it will be a success. Eric Lotke has a good piece on this today.

Losing the election, lacking ideas about how to fix the Bush-era mess, and unsure how or even whether to attack Obama personally, the conservatives are digging into the old bag of tricks. Karl Rove is the point man. The 1990’s are the time frame.

Conservatives are practiced at this attack. The talking points have long since been written and mastered. Talk radio needs the exercise. The Holder nomination represents a pathetic attempt to relive the glory days of the past [...] the Republicans are complaining about an eight year old pardon. The same republicans who sat around while George Bush turned the Department of Justice into a political tool, including hiring his white house counsel as Attorney General and firing US Attorneys who refused to undertake political prosecutions. Now they’re worried that this well proven civil servant, who earned his stripes on public corruption, might have made a mistake eight years ago.

Maybe he did. Or maybe he didn’t. But the world has moved on since then. We have other things to think about. Don’t fall for the distraction of litigating this long-dead case. Resist even the temptation to point out Bush’s own dubious pardons. Our people need doctors, our bridges need building, and the economy needs fixing. There’s work to do.

Politics here count for more than anything. If the conservatives win, it energizes the base for future battles. If the conservatives lose, they are driven farther into their corner. That’s why Karl Rove chose the battleground here, on fertile Clintonian soil.

This is all about picking a fight, trying to "play offense" instead of defense, all of the little petty nonsense that the media sucks up like cats to milk, precisely what can derail an agenda as irrelevancies take priority. Lotke thinks the answer for progressives and Democrats is to play this like a team. Indeed, Patrick Leahy today threw the Gonzales statement back in the face of every Republican who voted to confirm him. I would just be wary that Democrats don't ignore this. It's really quite toxic.

She Happens To Be Right On This One

Dianne Feinstein says that Roland Burris ought to be seated. She was one of the 50 Senators who signed that letter urging Rod Blagojevich to resign and imploring him not to make an appointment. And Burris should have not turned himself into a national joke by accepting it. But once all that was done, legally there is no reason not to seat a legitimate appointment by a governor who hasn't even been indicted, let alone impeached. Politically there may be a problem, but there's a problem on both sides - obviously seating Burris would create a "culture of corruption" problem in the Democratic caucus, but what's happening right now looks TERRIBLE politically, like blocking the schoolhouse door. Feinstein's stepping out, but she's on pretty firm legal ground.

Meanwhile, Burris is meeting with Democratic leaders today, and hopefully the three of them can come up with a strategy that defuses the politics of this, whether that means seating him or not. Burris' lawsuits will probably be wrapped up, in his favor, before Blagojevich is impeached and convicted and a new Illinois governor can make an appointment. So they'd better find a way out of this. The Quinn option may be a good one.

The key question now for Reid and Durbin: How do they find cover in a political story that has run amok? One idea being considered is to have Burris win an endorsement from the sitting lieutenant governor, Pat Quinn, one Democratic insider said.

A Democratic aide familiar with the process said that the idea of urging Quinn to endorse Burris is being seriously considered, and that strategy may emerge depending on the outcome of the meeting. Democrats are also considering urging Burris to not run in 2010 as one condition for their support, aides said.

In an interview with Politico on Tuesday, Reid said he would support a Quinn appointment, even if it was Burris.

Of course, I will once again say that the root problem here is the APPOINTMENT PROCESS itself.

Nate Silver has a bit more. Apparently a Gallup poll came out showing a narrow majority opposes Burris' seating; however, that same poll shows that people LOVE the idea of a special election.

UPDATE: The AP is reporting that the Senate will seat Burris, though Reid's office is denying it. I really have no sympathy for the Senate Dems on this one - they totally brought it on themselves.

Reid Denies It

Eric Boehlert raps LA Times blogger Andrew Malcolm for ignoring that Harry Reid denied the entire Chicago Sun-Times report alleging that he asked Rod Blagojevich not to appoint three black candidates for Barack Obama's Senate seat because he felt they couldn't win re-election. For the record, I ignored it too, at least until this point. I'm willing to give Reid the benefit of the doubt, but anyone who thinks that Reid didn't have at least some opinion on who should be selected, based mainly on electability, isn't paying attention. As I've repeatedly said, this is the fruit of an inherently corrupt process of Senate appointments, which ought to stop ASAP.

Everyone's Fingers In The Punchbowl

The situation with Rod Blagojevich is pulling a scab off of the Senate appointment process, with all the various players and all of the backroom deals. Blagojevich may have wanted to sell the seat to the highest bidder, but competing interests had their own views on the pick, including Harry Reid:

Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn’t want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.

Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis — both democratic congressmen from Illinois — and against Jones — the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama — because he did not believe the three men were electable. He feared losing the seat to a Republican in a future election.

Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero confirmed that Reid (D-Nev.) and U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) — the new chief of the Senate Democratic political operation — each called Blagojevich’s campaign office separately Dec. 3. Sources believe that at least portions of the phone conversations are on tape.

We have an outline of what happens in the event of a Senate vacancy now. Local leaders and electeds call the Governor with their views. Potential candidates call the Governor. The Senate leadership from the particular party and the chief campaign operative calls. If the seat involves the President-elect, someone from their office calls. All of them have their own offers to make, and they clearly go beyond "appreciation."

It's called influence-peddling, and it's the natural outgrowth of an election process where one man or woman casts the deciding vote. The less people there are involved in a decision of this nature, the more potential for corruption. It's just common sense.

Section 2 of the Seventeenth Amendment reads like this:

"When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct."

The amendment is written specifically to provide for a special election, but allowing for temporary appointments in the interim if the legislature of the state allows it. The legislatures, then, could DISALLOW such an appointment, and move to undertake the special election with all deliberate speed instead of the next November in the two-year cycle. There are potentially ways for the legislature to limit the power of the appointment process (say, providing a list of names from the state party of the former officeholder, as they do in Wyoming), but there's a pretty strong case to made that such limits are unconstitutional, and before long some Governor with their back up will contest that. So the solution here is to either compel state legislatures to disallow temporary appointments, or to write a NEW Constitutional amendment, taking the appointment process away from the Governors, which is fully keeping with the Constitution, as these are seats for federal office.

...as Chris Bowers notes, the fact that Reid didn't want three black candidates to be selected because of electability suggests that he doesn't think Roland Burris is particularly electable either, putting a new spin on the efforts to block the Capitol door and stop the appointment.

One of the major problems here is the corruption associated with the concept of "electability" itself. Not only is it anti-democratic, but in truly retrograde fashion it reinforces oppressive cultural perceptions--such as African-Americans being unelectable, and Democrats needing to turn to veteran's in order to shore up foreign policy credentials--rather than challenging them. To a large extent, the Constitutional method of appointing Senators, rather than holding special elections, is itself to blame. Additionally, the lack of intra-party democracy and top-down elitism of our political process is also to blame. None of these problems would have occurred if we had simply held an election, and engaged in the radical experiment of letting the people decide.

Yep.

Impeachment Fast Track As Harry Reid Hopes For A Bailout

Looks like Michael Madigan got a breathless phone call from Harry Reid.

The Illinois House could vote as early as next week on whether to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

The Illinois House has bumped up its schedule and will meet several days next week. They had been set to reconvene on Jan. 12.

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.

Much like in the US Congress, an impeachment vote in the Illinois House would need only a majority vote. Then there would be a trial in the Senate, with 2/3 needed for conviction.

Reid is desperate for the Illinois House to get Blagojevich impeached already so the Lt. Governor can make an appointment to the seat and the Senate can choose him over Roland Burris. This still seems like an extremely dubious out for Reid and co., as Burris has already been appointed under a legal process, but somehow everyone believes they can just get a do-over.

I don't really understand what the hell the Senate leadership is doing. Granted, they don't want Republicans to use Burris as an example of the Democrats' "culture of corruption" for the next two years, but the "running around like a chicken with their head cut off" strategy seems like a poor counter-maneuver.

I assume the Senate Dems feel that they have to assert themselves or risk being seen as weak. They are, as Jane points out, afraid that John Cornyn will hang Burris around their necks. But unfortunately, they are asserting themselves in a way that simultaneously appears to be petty, unlawful, panicked and potentially even racist. At the very least they are escalating a distracting political circus at a time of great national crisis, which hardly seems like a smart way to start the new Democratic era. I'm all for fighting the good fight, but it would probably be more useful to do it over something that actually matters.

But hey, maybe it's actually good for them to have a big public, interparty hissy fit right now. With enough practice on each other, they might develop enough courage and skill to outmaneuver the Republicans someday.

They could start by seating Al Franken once the Minnesota Canvassing Board declares him the victor, or at least forcing the 41 members of the Republican caucus to filibuster. That would be a fight with a tangible end goal instead of "avoiding a political embarrassment," a cause which is ill-served by CREATING a political embarrassment at the same time. Besides, Burris is hardly the first or the last man put into the Senate by a process perceived to be crooked. Look at this guy:

(William "Wild Bill" Langer) was removed from office by the North Dakota Supreme Court for allegedly pressuring recipients of governmental aid to donate money to his private newspaper and for allegedly forcing state employees to give funds to the state Republican party. [1]. He was found guilty of fraud in 1934. The North Dakota Supreme Court ordered him removed from office due to his conviction on a felony charge, and on July 17, 1934, the Court declared Lieutenant Governor Ole H. Olson the legitimate governor. Langer gathered with about ten friends, declared North Dakota independent, declared martial law, and barricaded himself in the governor's mansion until the Supreme Court would meet with him. [2] Langer eventually relented, and Olson served the remainder of Langer's term as Governor [...]

Can you believe this story?

He's governor, he's accused of corruption. He's convicted, and removed from office, but he refuses to leave, barricades himself in, declares martial law and independence from the United States! Then he comes out, goes to jail, gets acquitted in a second trial during which he later admitted to bribing the judge!

And then he runs for governor again and wins, and then later for Senate and wins! And when he gets to the Senate, they investigate and he admits the bribery!

And there are still three votes to seat him on the committee! And 52 to seat him on the Senate floor!

Predictably, Langer went on to become Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Senate Democrats standing up and fighting for the Constitution is a nice sign. When it only comes at the expense of other Democrats, it's more troubling than comforting.

Stall Tactic

The Senate has a plan to slow-walk the Roland Burris appointment until Rod Blagojevich is impeached. This plan will guarantee dozens of stories about race, the Democrats' slap in the face to African-Americans, the deep cruelty and perversion of the Constitution by the Democrats, and just an overall bad spate of stories in the news as Burris makes the case for his rightful seating.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White has said he will not certify the controversial appointment by disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

But even if the Illinois justices force him to make the appointment official, Senate Democrats in Washington will still resist.

Senate officials tell Politico that if presented with the appointment, they are likely to give the Rules Committee 90 days to determine the propriety of the appointment by looking into such issues as whether Blagojevich received anything in return for it.

“A motion to refer credentials to the committee has the effect of delaying seating,” a Senate Democratic aide said. “The motion is debatable and amendable.”

Another official explained: “That buys us 90 days.”

That should be enough so the senators won’t have to act to prevent Burris from joining the chamber. Blagojevich’s defiance inflamed Illinois legislators, speeding up the impeachment process.

“He will not be governor by Valentine’s Day,” the official said.

What a truly awful idea. It's a recipe to make it an even bigger, more consequential story, symbolic of a general Democratic malfeasance, all pushed by the conservative noise machine, of course. Not to mention the "rupture" in the Democratic Party that will be endlessly flogged. Four more black House members have called for Burris to be seated. Then there's this circus:

Should Roland Burris show up Tuesday for duty in the Senate, armed police officers stand ready to bar him from the floor.

This cinematic showdown is among an elaborate set of contingencies that Democratic leaders are planning if, as expected, the Illinoisan shows up with newly elected senators pressing his claim that he is the legitimate replacement for President-elect Barack Obama after the disputed appointment of Burris by Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.

A black man being blocked entry to the Capitol. That's going to look AWESOME on TV. As Jane notes, these are the same Capitol police that weren't employed to arrest members of the Bush Administration for failing to honor legal Congressional subpoenas.

Meanwhile, over in New York, David Paterson is considering appointing a "caretaker" Senator for two years, who would allow the seat to go up for grabs in 2010. That's a great idea except for the "caretaker" part. Why not do away with the appointment process altogether if something can happen like it has in Illinois, or the pressures to allow the people to choose there own representatives forces a caretaker like in New York? Why the hell are we still empowering individual governors to make these decisions?

Constitutional. Amendment.

UPDATE: Robert Farley makes a good point, that Cabinet appointments would be less likely to choose Senators if special elections were mandated, but it's not a good enough point to keep a functional aristocracy in place. Some things make sense regardless of the political consequences.

Can Burris Be Seated?

Senate Democrats seem prepared to try and block the appointment of Roland Burris to the US Senate, and at first glance, given the Senate's control over the seating of its own members as granted by the Constitution, I thought they had that ability. However, a closer reading of precedent suggests that they may be stuck with ol' Roland.

Democrats said they were confident of their standing under Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution, which says “each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own members.” On rare occasion, the Senate has denied seats to candidates whose election outcome was in doubt or who were caught up in corruption.

Yet constitutional experts question the extent of that authority, particularly in light of a 1969 Supreme Court decision in the case of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York. The court found that the House could not bar Mr. Powell, who had been accused of financial impropriety, if he met the constitutionally determined qualifications for age, citizenship and residency.

“I think the best reading of the text of the Constitution and the Powell case together is that the Senate has to seat Burris,” said Abner S. Greene, the Leonard F. Manning professor of law at Fordham University School of Law.

Jack Balkin thinks the Senate can essentially say that the process of the executive appointing Burris was improper, and that could be the basis of their refusal. Considering that the Secretary of State of Illinois is refusing to certify the appointment (and it's unclear whether or not he even has a say in the matter), there's at least some basis for that. I think this fight comes down to more of a delaying tactic than anything, waiting out Blagojevich until he's indicted or impeached and hoping that Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn can make the appointment. However, Patrick Fitzgerald just asked for an extension in the indictment process:

In a motion filed today in U.S. District Court, Fitzgerald said that the length, scope, and complexity of the investigation, combined with the intrusion of the holiday season, has prevented him from meeting the January 7 deadline. The probe, writes the prosecutor, began in 2003 and "involves multiple potential defendants" and thousands of intercepted phone calls.

The move means that we likely won't learn much more from Fitzgerald about Blagojevich's alleged crimes until at least March. So speculation is likely to continue.

And the Illinois legislature won't be speeding up their process of impeachment, meaning that wouldn't kick in until mid-February. And then there's the question of what happens if Quinn tries to appoint and the Burris case is still tied up in court.

Again, if nobody can lead an effort to change the Constitution, mandating special elections for every vacancy, after THIS, then there is no such thing as a Constitutional amendment anymore. Rather, I think this parallel in the Times story is the one Senate Dems are meekly hoping for:

One rough parallel to the current situation arose in 1947 in a Senate dispute over whether the white supremacist Theodore G. Bilbo of Mississippi should be seated after accusations of voter suppression and campaign corruption. In that case, the Senate found itself deadlocked, and Mr. Bilbo died before the disagreement could be resolved.

...As to Blagojevich's motivations, I agree with Dan Conley that this is a criminal defense trial masquerading as a Senate appointment. He is proving that he can appoint a Senator without auctioning off the seat, undermining that element of the complaint (which isn't the main one, by the way); and by appointing an African-American, and by getting the respected Bobby Rush to warn Senate leaders not to "lynch" him, he brings racial politics into the equation, which may be an aid when the jury is seated, perhaps in heavily black Chicago.

Illinois, Earth-2

That was a truly bizarre press conference by the Governor of Illinois. Rod Blagojevich introduced Roland Burris as his choice for the Senate as if nothing was wrong, and when Burris took questions the press erupted. Blagojevich blamed Democrats for not taking his power away and calling for a special election, forcing him to act. Burris seemed confused and something of a bystander to the chaos around him. Then Bobby Rush, the respected former Black Panther and US Congressman, just showed up and sauntered toward the microphone, casting the situation as a civil rights issue, saying that we need African-Americans in the US Senate and that nobody should stop Roland Burris because Illinoisians, particularly black Illinoisians, would be "very upset" at that turn of events. Meanwhile, DURING the press conference it was revealed that the Secretary of State of Illinois won't certify the appointment, meaning that Burris wouldn't ever make it to Washington. That will surely go to the courts.

Unbelievably bizarre. And the Democrats in Illinois are really guilty of causing this chaos. They resisted a special election because they thought they might lose it, which by the way is not clear at all. So they ran the risk of Blago making an appointment, and considering he was being threatened with impeachment (which they could have handled in a few days), they practically dared him to do it. They knew Blago was unstable and let allowed him to keep his power. The Republicans in Illinois are absolutely right, sadly enough. And whenever this seat comes up for a vote, I suspect Republicans will have a very good chance to win it, a far better one than if the Democrats just called for a special election in the first place.

Sad. And Democratic poll-driven caution bites them in the ass again.

...by the way, if the combination of this and the Caroline Kennedy mess in New York doesn't propel forward a Constitutional amendment stipulating that all Senate vacancies be decided by special election and not the appointments of state Governors, then you might as well just end the Constitutional amendment process altogether.

...what? The Illinois Secretary of State is Jesse White? From the Jesse White Tumblers? Seriously?