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David is an occasional blogger, software engineer, Nintendo fanboy, liberal, news magazine addict, voracious TiVo user, and bibliophile. He was born in St. Louis, grew up in southern Indiana, and returned to St. Louis to attend Washington University. He hasn't managed to escape yet. He's a fan of free wine tastings, too many tv shows to name, and eating out. David makes his living developing web applications used internally by his employer. He doesn't blog about work because he's heard too many stories about that causing workplace troubles. There's more on the about page. |
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More Thoughts on Roland Burris
At this point, I don't think there are any good options left for the Senate Democrats when it comes to Roland Burris. From a strict rule of law perspective, I think he has to be seated. Rod Blagojevich, as much as we might wish it otherwise, is governor of Illinois. Whether he remains the governor for very long is up for discussion, but he clearly has the authority to make this appointment. And coming after eight years when I government cleared showed great disdain for the rule of law, refusing to seat Mr. Burris puts the Senate Democrats in the same camp as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney -- not company they'd usually be eager to keep. It's also not clear that the delaying tactics currently being contemplated by the Senate Democrats will make much difference. Blagojevich might get impeached next week and removed from office the following week, but he still made the appointment last week when he was the governor of Illinois.
Now that everyone has been backed into a corner, I'd like to point out that this was a totally preventable situation. Rod Blagojevich supported legislation calling for a special election to fill the vacant Senate seat, but the Illinois legislature apparently decided to roll the dice on Blagojevich not making an appointment, and decided not to pass any special election legislation (likely out of fear that the GOP would have a decent chance of winning on the back of this scandal). So here we are.
Incidentally, while I feel quite confident that Blagojevich will be impeached and has better than even odds of being removed from office, I am not nearly as confident that he'll be convicted of wrong doing in court. Patrick Fitzgerald, rightly I think, moved forward with a case that wasn't fully formed in order to stop possible future corruption. A perfectly fair use of prosecutorial discretion, but it may have seriously compromised his brief against Blagojevich.
Posted by on 2 January 2009 at 7:50 PM
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