In case folks were wondering what the people of Illinois think of the Blago/Burris Farce:

Roland Burris is paying the price for an appointment that is tarnished and tainted by the cloud of corruption and scandal that hovers menacingly over the head of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to a new poll by the Glengariff Group. The poll indicates that 52 percent of Illinois voters oppose the appointment. Only 32 percent support it and only 21 percent approve of the governor's decision to exercise his appointment power, while 72 per cent want a special election or an appointment by Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn to fill the Senate seat. "I think rather than a judgment on Roland, this is a judgment on the process," said Don Rose, political analyst.

(Emphasis supplied.) By contrast, a plurality of Minnesotans support the seating of Al Franken. If all politics is local, then the questions of the political wisdom of seating Roland Burris has to be questioned. I oppose the seating of Burris on ethical grounds and believe the Constitution provides the Senate the legal power to judge the "return" of the tainted Blago appointment of Roland Burris. If and when Blago is removed from office and indicted and convicted, the politics of this will be even clearer. That will be closer to election day 2010.

Speaking for me only

Stanley Fish writes an elegant column in the NYTimes about the Blago/Burris affair. I disagree with it but it raises some interesting questions. Fish cites Augustine's works denouncing the Donatists to support his view that Burris should be seated by the Senate (which seem certain to happen now, the Senate is not engaged in this intellectual exercise - political calculation, wrongheaded in my view, leading it to abandon the principle stated in the December 2008 letter from Senate Democrats to Blagojevich.) More . . .

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was impeached today by the Illinois House of Representatives. The vote was 114-1 with one voting present. His impeachment has been referred to the Illinois Senate for trial on removal of Blagojevich from office.

Among the charges brought against Blagojevich was of trying to sell the appointment to the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama and for which Blagojevich has named Roland Burris, whose testimony before the Illinois House Impeachment Committee raised questions regarding his contacts with Blagojevich: [More...]

Colorado U.S. Attorney Troy Eid announced yesterday he will resign, effective Jan. 19. He's going to run for state attorney general. The current attorney general, John Suthers, is expected to challenge newly appointed Sen. Michael Bennet, the replacement for Ken Salazar, in 2010.

Eid's wife, Allison Eid, currently serves on the Colorado Supreme Court. If Eid wins the attorney general election, he said she will resign from the bench.

Eid will return to private practice with his former law firm, Greenberg Traurig (Jack Abramoff's old firm.)

Ex-Senator Larry Craig has decided to give up on his appeals of his conviction for the bathroom stall sex-sting incident.

Craig is now back in Idaho. His tenure as senator expired this week.

HuffPo reports that Senate aides are saying that President-Elect Obama reversed his view on the seating of Blago appointee Roland Burris and recommended to the Dem Senate caucus that Burris be seated:

The apparent decision to seat Roland Burris came after aides to President-elect Barack Obama contacted senior Senate Democrats and suggested that they reverse course and accept Gov. Rod Blagojevich's controversial appointment, according to a senior Dem congressional aide.

Let the fingerpointing begin.

Speaking for me only

Unlike John Cole, I thought the Senate Dems were taking the proper course, as a matter of law and politics, in not seating any appointment to the vacant Senate Illinois seat by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who has been credibly accused of trying to sell the appointment. But Cole is right about this:

Harry Reid has now, according to this [Gallup] poll . . . helped create popular support for Burris to not be seated. Since Burris will be seated anyway, these people will be pissed, Reid will look like a clown for being rolled over and put in his place by Blagojevich, and Republicans, with an assist from the Democrats who ran around calling Burris tainted for several weeks, will now claim Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans. . . You couldn’t game out a worse scenario for the Democrats . . . If you could be sued for political malpractice, I would be leading a class action suit against the Democratic leadership right now.

More . . .

UPDATE - Press conference to begin momentarily. Reid and Durbin at the mike. Brings up "the entire Senate will have to act on this." I think he'll make sure everyone goes on the record on this one. Burris won't be seated today. But reading the tea leaves, it is clear that Burris WILL be seated. The question is how bad will the Democrats in the Senate look in the process. They focus on the Illinois Secretary of State signature. Silly stuff. And insuring that Franken will not be seated until the Minnesota Senate contest is finally resolved.

With the reports that the Senate has capitulated to Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, credibly accused of trying to sell the appointment of an Illinois Senate seat, by seating Roland Burris, many are stating the drama is over. I beg to differ. The drama is only beginning.

More . . .

At this point, it seems there is a good deal of doubt about whether the Senate truly believes that a Senatorial appointment by Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is so tainted that it should exercise its power under Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution and not seat Roland Burris. If that is so, then this controversy should be brought to an end and Burris should be seated forthwith. I would disagree with the Senate's assessment, but the Constitution provides that power to the Senate, not to me. I do disagree with the argument presented by Walter Dellinger for Senatorial minimalism:

It is only a decision to exclude Mr. Burris that would lead to a continuing dispute about whether the Senate had the authority to reject the choice of a sitting governor. The Senate can avoid this constitutional quagmire entirely by agreeing to seat Mr. Burris, a respected public servant no one has accused of any wrongdoing.

Mr. Dellinger clerked for Justice Hugo Black when Powell v. McCormack was decided. It is interesting that Dellinger does not discuss the fact that the Court could have avoided the constitutional question and not decided the Powell case, which was moot in its essential question, whether Powell would be seated in the 90th Congress. Dellinger writes:

Sen. Diane Feinstein has decided that Roland Burris should be seated:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein rejected the reasoning that all of the chamber's Democrats, herself included, had cited in a letter last week — that corruption charges against Burris' patron, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, tainted his appointment. "Does the governor have the power, under law, to make the appointment? And the answer is yes," said Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Rules Committee, which judges the credentials of senators.

Funny, less than a month ago, Feinstein signed a letter saying the opposite:

Please understand that should you [Blagojevich] decide to ignore the request of the Senate Democratic Caucus and make an appointment we would be forced to exercise our Constitutional authority under Article I, Section 5, to determine whether such a person should be seated.

Begging the question, does Feinstein read the letters she signs?

Speaking for me only

Problem Number 1, acting, as Erwin Chemerinsky does, if your judgment that the Senate would be ill advised to reject Roland Burris, the Blago Farce appointee, is the equivalent of violating the Constitution. Chemerinsky writes:

The desire of Senate Democrats, and even Obama, to keep Blagojevich from picking the new senator from Illinois is understandable -- a federal attorney arrested the governor on charges of trying to sell the appointment for personal gain. Although Burris is untainted by the scandal, any selection made by Blagojevich is suspect. But the taint of Blagojevich's alleged crimes does not justify ignoring the Constitution.

Not seating Burris, pursuant to the Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution is the opposite of ignoring the Constitution. It may be that the interpretation of the Constitution forwarded by Senate Democrats is some day found to be incorrect by the Supreme Court. I doubt that day will come. But clearly the Senate is not ignoring the Constitution here. We all can have our judgment on whether it is wise for the Senate to do this, but it is absurd to argue that because the Senate disagrees with your judgment that it is acting unconstitutionally. More . .

The Senate has refused to seat or swear in Roland Burris because his appointment was not signed by the Illinois Secretary of State.

Mr. Burris made his way to the office of Nancy Erickson, the secretary of the Senate, to whom he presented his credentials. Afterward, the aspiring legislator stood in the rain outside and declared, “Members of the media, my name is Roland Burris, the junior senator from the State of Illinois.”

...Ms. Erickson had already said that the appointment letter forwarded by the governor’s office did not comply with Rule II of the Senate’s standing rules, which requires signatures of both the governor and the secretary of state.

Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State, refused to sign the appointment papers because of the Blagojevich criminal matter.