Once again, Democrats eat their own
By
Bill Press Read Spanish Version
Who
says there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans?
When
Republicans take power, they band together to fight Democrats. When
Democrats take power, they split into warring camps and eat their
own.
Just
look at the continuing circus surrounding Roland Burris, the man
named by disgraced Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill the Senate
seat of Barack Obama. It is monumentally shortsighted, and political
suicide, for Democrats to continue to deny him his Senate seat.
So
what if Burris was appointed by Blagojevich? In judging Burris’
fitness for the job, there are only two questions. First, was his
appointment legal? The answer is clearly yes. Blagojevich may have
been charged with wrongdoing, but he has not yet been convicted of
any crime. He is still governor. He has the legal authority to make a
Senate appointment, and he did so. It is grossly unfair to hold
Blagojevich’s alleged sins against anyone he so honors.
Second
question: Is Burris qualified? Again, the answer is clearly yes. As
required by the Constitution, he’s over 30, an American citizen, and
a resident of the state he would represent.
Burris
is a distinguished Chicago attorney with an unblemished record who
became the first African-American to be elected to statewide office
in Illinois in 1978, when voters made him state comptroller. Twelve
years later, he was elected attorney general of Illinois.
No
one, in fact, has questioned Burris’ credentials nor suggested that
he was part of any "pay to play" deal with Blagojevich —
partly because, as Burris was the first to admit: "I have no
money."
So
why did Democrats refuse to seat him? Only because they don’t like
Blagojevich and don’t want to be associated with him in any way.
Hello? Nobody likes Blagojevich. That’s irrelevant. No matter who
gave Burris the job, as long as he’s legally appointed and duly
qualified, he should have been sworn in on day one, along with the
rest of the Senate.
Instead,
on live television, Democrats turned Burris away at the entrance to
the Senate. (Am I the only one who flashed back to George Wallace
standing in the schoolhouse door?) The next day, realizing how badly
Democrats had been hurt by images of Burris being left out in the
rain, leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin met with the embattled
appointee and announced they would relent and consider seating Burris
after all. But only after four conditions had been met: Burris had
proved his innocence of any quid pro quo with Blagojevich; the
Illinois secretary of state had certified his appointment; the Senate
Rules Committee had conducted its own investigation; and Burris had
been approved by a vote of the full Senate.
What
nonsense. Don’t Democratic leaders get it? All they’ve done by piling
on these conditions is drag the issue out for another few weeks or
months, meanwhile making Burris look like an innocent victim, making
the Democratic Party look intolerant, and depriving the people of
Illinois from one more vote in the U.S. Senate.
Besides,
the Senate has no legal right to impose its own set of conditions on
Roland Burris.
That
question was already raised and decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in
Powell v. McCormack (1969). In that case, New York Congressman Adam
Clayton Powell Jr. had been re-elected to Congress despite
allegations of misuse of travel funds. When the House, under Speaker
John McCormack, refused to honor the election results, Powell sued
and won. In a majority opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren,
the court ruled that Congress does not have the power to add
qualifications for office other than those spelled out in the
Constitution. If that was true for the scandal-plagued Powell, it’s
all the more true for the scandal-free Burris.
This
whole thing is one bloody mess and one giant distraction that could
have been avoided, if Democrats would only learn to think straight.
Trying to avoid the stigma of Blagojevich, they stigmatized
themselves, instead. It wasn’t racism. It was just stupidity.
How
much smarter it would have been to just give Burris his seat — and
then move on, with one more solid Democratic vote — to stop fighting
each other and start fighting Republicans over the stimulus package.
The sooner Democrats do that, the better.
Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "Train
Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too
Soon)." You
can hear "The Bill Press Show" at his Web site:
billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.
(c)
2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
