Blagojevich's Senate stunt

The Illinois governor throws Senate Democrats a curveball

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) appointed Roland Burris, 71, to fill the U.S. Senate seat he is accused of trying to sell, said The Washington Post in an editorial. And despite Burris’s “strong credentials”—the state’s first black attorney general and the first African American elected to statewide office—the tainted appointment “cannot be allowed to stand.” Senate Democrats should follow through on their threat to not accept Burris as President-elect Obama’s replacement.

“Legally, they can’t,” said Will Bunch in the Philadelphia Daily News online. “People are understandably outraged” by Blagojevich’s “affront to political decency,” but a landmark 1969 Supreme Court case limits the Senate’s ability to reject his choice—Burris is legally eligible to be a U.S. senator. Democrats should give up this fight and instead “rally behind” some 2010 Illinois candidate “not named Ronald Burris.”

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