Let us have our say

Governor Blagojevich's choice for Senate, Roland Burris, appeared last night at a campaign rally, uh, church to defiantly state "I am now the junior Senator from Illinois":

The prayer service was organized by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who has accused Senate Democrats of using racial motivations to refuse to seat Burris, Illinois' first statewide elected black official. On Sunday night, Rush called the Senate "one of the last bastions of plantation and racial politics in America" and said Senate Democrats who won't seat Burris are "going to have to come and ask for forgiveness" from black Americans.

Today Burris is on his way to Washington. Legally the Senate has little standing to deny him the seat, but embarrassed Democrats Durbin and Reid are desperate to finesse a different, ultimately more electable choice, presumably to be made by Lt. Governor Patrick Quinn once Blago's impeached. They are willing to run roughshod over the law--and the will of the people--to keep the seat in Democrat hands. Under their direction, the Secretary of the U.S. Senate has just rejected his credentials this morning. Federal prosecutors also get a 90-day extension from a judge to develop Blago's indictment.

The Illinois legislature's impeachment committee met in a non-meeting meeting Sunday--an evasion of the Open Meetings Act? --so as to keep the proceedings from the public, wrangling over the draft of the articles of impeachment. According to Chicago Dem Rep. John Fritchey, even if passed by the old House this week, the newly sworn-in Illinois House may have to vote on it again next week--and then it goes to the Illinois Senate, the bastion of Blago's support, at least up until now.

The Sun Times' Laura Washington argues that blacks deserve to "keep the seat", like it should be owned by a group and passed down in perpetuity. How Illinois is that--politics as the family business. Of course that's what saddled us with Blago--he married into a powerful political family and became the heir apparent, and was reelected despite having accomplished little to right the state's listing economy and being under myriad investigations by the feds. The Tribune's Dawn Turner Trice makes an appeal to move beyond narrow definitions of who is "authentically" black and race as a definition of a person.

I will say it again--the only respectable way to retrieve this sorry situation is to call a special election. Let the voters decide who should serve them--no leading Democrat politician has the moral standing to make this choice--not the Governor, nor the Lt. Governor, not the Democrat Leader of the U.S. Senate Harry Reid. Call a special election.

If you legislators have any shame at all--I know it's a slim hope--vote to grant Illinoisans a say on their Senator.

UPDATE: Yes, Blago may be impeached, but he may not be convicted in a court of law. Who knows? Then again, he may not be impeached, even though state government is even more paralyzed than it's been because no one wants to talk to him for fear they'll be indicted. The upshot is he needs to be impeached because he has been acting totally unethically and has violated everyone's trust--and the legislature needs to vote for a special election now.