The Blago appointment has whipped up fervor in the U.S. Senate. Senator Harry Reid and company have jumped in the fray and launched a political battle against the Illinois governor. Unfortunately, the U.S. Senate has decided to ignore the law of the land by taking matters into their own politically biased hands. Threats of investigations and denying the swearing in of Roland Burris are shameful and petty, not to mention illegal.
Amendment seventeen to the U.S. Constitution gives the State and its legislature power to appoint vacancies in the Senate. Any attempt by the U.S. Senate to block an appointment by the state of Illinois is a clear violation of the rule of law in this country. The Senate must honor this appointment.
The U.S. Constitution is a legal, binding document. Those who partake in our government are required to swear allegiance to support and defend it. This document is to be obeyed literally not interpretively. The first thing any politician should do before making a decision is consult the Constitution. Obviously this doesn't happen very often because if it did we would either have a Declaration of War against Iraq or 4,300 less dead soldiers.
If the Senate is really unhappy with the Blago appointment, they should read Article 1, Section 5 of the aforementioned Constitution, gather the necessary two thirds concurrence and expel Roland Burris after his appointment. However, this would be very difficult to do considering Roland Burris is more than qualified and there is no evidence of wrongdoing in his appointment. Once again, the Senate is defying its obligation to support the Constitution to play politics as usual.
©2009 BattleStations, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Thursday, January 1, 2009
Last modified: Thursday, January 1, 2009
The views expressed in this article are those of BattleStations only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. BattleStations is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Report violation by BattleStations of Nolan Chart LLC's terms of use policy.
| More Articles By BattleStations |
Reader Comments:
Posted By: Richard
Date: 2009-01-01 22:38:04
As Professor Akhil Reed Amar and Josh Chafetz wrote in “How the Senate Can Stop Blagojevich” here’s why the Senate can stop Roland Burris from taking a seat in the senate: “Following English parliamentary tradition and early Colonial and state practice, the framers made the Senate its own gatekeeper and guardian. Each house of Congress is "the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own members," according to Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution. At the founding, Senators were elected by state legislatures. If the Senate believed that legislators in a given state had been bribed into voting for a particular candidate, the Senate could refuse to seat him. Because of the word "returns" in Section 5, what is true of elected Senators is equally true of appointed Senators. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a "Return" in the time of the framers involved a report of an appointment made by a sheriff or other official. If the Senate may refuse to seat a person picked in a corrupt election, it likewise may refuse to seat a person picked in a corrupt appointment process. (Alternatively, we might think of an appointment as an "election" by one voter.) A simple majority of the Senate would suffice to exclude Burris. Majority rule is the general default principle established by the Constitution, except where text, structure, or tradition indicates otherwise. When the Senate tries to expel a member who has already been seated, the rule is two-thirds (as it is when the Senate sits as an impeachment court). But the framers clearly understood that majority rule would apply when the Senate was judging the accuracy and fairness of elections or appointments. The power to judge elections and returns has been used on countless occasions in American history, at both the state and federal level, to exclude candidates whose elections and appointments were suspect. True, in the 1969 case of Powell v. McCormack, the Supreme Court properly held that the Constitution imposes limits on the power of the Senate and the House to exclude members. Some legal commentators say this decision trumps the Senate's power to exclude Burris. But the letter and spirit of Powell actually cut against him. The case involved an elected congressman, Adam Clayton Powell, whom the voters had clearly chosen in a fair election and whom the House nevertheless excluded—wrongly, the court held. The key fact is that there was no doubt whatsoever that Powell was the people's choice, and in issuing its ruling, the Warren Court repeatedly stressed this. The justices insisted that their ruling was aimed at protecting the people's right to vote. None of that spirit applies here. And that's why the case doesn't stand in the Senate's way now....”
Posted By: george mccormick
Date: 2009-01-08 04:41:39
Richard,
The problem with that argument is that there IS NO ALLEGATION or even more importantantly a FINDING of a corrupt election or appointment. There isn't even an indictment in the case of Govenor Blogevich. Reid and Durbin aren't even using that as an argument. And even if they were, do they wanna try to prove that before the Senate? They wouldn't, COULDN"T get even a simple majority on that one. If corrupt election was an automatic disqualifier, would it be possible to seat ANY senator from Illinois? And of one thing I am sure, when it comes to the Constitution, the "will of the people" is of zero consequence - ask anyone from California where they (The COURT) routinely disregard results from referenda and the clear will of the people. And one other thing I'm sure of, and in case you couldnt tell I'm NO lawyer, not even a college grad, but we both KNOW Reid never gave the Constitution a second thought. Liberals NEVER do, they prefer to make it up on the fly. How else do ya come up with terms like "seperation of church and state" and "right to privacy" and 20,000 laws infringing on the right to keep and bear arms?