Senate Dems’ Hot Illinois Mess

The new Congress opens tomorrow. For Senate Democrats, it will be far from the “new course for our country” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised in November.

Instead, Senate Democrats will be challenged by a hot Illinois mess when Roland Burris shows up to be sworn in.

During an appearance on PBS’ NewsHour, Burris said:

The governor’s appointment is legal, and I am the junior senator for the state of Illinois.

Burris continued:

What they didn’t take into consideration, Ray, is the fact that the governor is the governor. He has a constitutional and legal authority to appoint a replacement for the United States Senate when there is a vacancy.

Harvard Law Prof. Larry Lessig, founder of Change Congress, told Politico:

Let it go. Blagojevich may be a crook. The Illinois legislature should probably impeach him. But he remains governor, and the governor has the power to appoint a senator. No one believes Burris tried to buy his seat. No one should doubt that he is otherwise qualified. Would a citizen of Illinois have the right to refuse to obey a law signed by Blagojevich? Why does the US Senate?

Why indeed. Reid is standing on shaky ground.

In 1967, the House voted to exclude Adam Clayton Powell Jr. from taking his seat. Powell sued and won.

In Powell v. McCormack, the U.S. Supreme Court held that “in judging the qualifications of its members, Congress is limited to the standing qualifications prescribed in the Constitution.”

I asked Adam Clayton Powell III to share his thoughts on the Senate drama. Adam was present for the oral argument in the landmark case. In an email, Adam wrote:

They don’t know their constitutional law, do they?

It will be interesting to see whether the Senate adopts the same legal reasoning that the lawyer for the House of Representatives used in the Supreme Court argument: that exclusion of an elected member of Congress because of race, while clearly unconstitutional, would not be a sufficient “perversion” to warrant judicial relief…This echo of Reconstruction caused a quite audible reaction in the court, and incredulity from the bench.

Adam sent a link to an audio clip of the oral argument and added:

Interesting that these cases all so often are about race.

Indeed, race is the context, subtext and pretext to Burris’ appointment.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Reid didn’t want Blagojevich to appoint an African American to fill the vacant seat:

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.

With race front and center, the ground is shifting under Reid. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the Senate Majority Leader said:

SEN. REID: The state of Illinois deserves a vote in the United States Senate, and the people of the state of Illinois, the fifth most populous state in the union, deserve that vote. It’s too bad Blagojevich has diverted attention from the real issue. And we’ll--we’re--as I’ve indicated, we’re going to come--I’m going to meet with Senator McConnell, my Republican counterpart. I hope to do that Monday evening. I think it’s around 6:00 or something like that. We’ll talk about this. I hope we can solve this issue on a bipartisan basis.

MR. GREGORY: But there sounds to me like there may be some room here to negotiate and actually seat Burris?

SEN. REID: Hey, listen, David, I’m an old trial lawyer. There’s always room to negotiate (emphasis added).

MR. GREGORY: All right, so you’re not saying no completely that he won’t serve?

SEN. REID: That’s right.