Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for December 31, 2008 CRAZY...LIKE A FOX

The opinion of President-Elect Barack Obama notwithstanding...

Folks need to move on!

Rod beat y'all to the punch. Rod had the power...Rod exercised the power. Hey, at least he picked a guy who has been elected by the voters of Illinois on three separate occasions. A special election would be months away...and cost an estimated $40 million.

Folks need to move on!

Like it or not, Blagojevich is still Governor. Contrary to current public posturing by a multitude of politicians...Democrats and Republicans...national, state, and local...our esteemed Governor is "innocent until proved guilty". Oh, many hearts are atwitter...audio tapes...fussing and cussing. Yeah, seems I remember some video tape...cops beating Rodney King. Seems like I remember OJ...the first trial, the murder trial.

Folks need to move on!

Ridicule Blagojevich...Impeach Blagojevich...Remove Blagojevich...Prosecute Blagojevich...HELL, throw shoes at Blagojevich!

In the meantime, seat Roland Burris...and move on!

Can Burris be Stopped from Taking Obama’s Senate Seat?

Copyright © David J. Shestokas

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich announced his choice to succeed Barack Obama in the Senate. The Governor has been arrested and impeachment is looming.

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White has said he will not certify the governor’s appointment with the Seal of the State of Illinois. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 50 United States Senators have announced they would not allow anyone appointed by Blagojevich to serve in the Senate. The question becomes whether they actually can deny a Senate seat to former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris because of the pending criminal charges and impeachment proceedings against Governor Blagojevich.

The Governor’s Authority to Fill a Senate Vacancy

When Barack Obama resigned his seat in preparing to assume the presidency, a vacancy in the US Senate was created. The Seventeenth Amendment to the US Constitution created a provision which enabling a state's governor, authorized by that state's legislature, to appoint a Senator in the event of a vacancy, until an election is held to fill the vacancy. Illinois law provides: “When a vacancy shall occur in the office of United States Senator from this state, the Governor shall make temporary appointment to fill such vacancy until the next election of representatives in Congress…”When reading the US Constitution together with the Illinois law, it appears that Governor Blagojevich’s authority to fill the Senate seat is absolute.

Secretary White’s Role in Certifying the Appointment Secretary White has indicated that he will not certify any document as being an official act of the State of Illinois which purports to be an appointment of a Senator by Blagojevich. The Secretary of State is the official keeper of the Seal of the State of Illinois and is responsible for attaching the seal to official Illinois documents.

The role is purely ministerial. The Secretary has no legal authority to approve or disapprove of the Blagojevich choice. Attaching the seal is analogous to the role of a notary in affirming a signature. The notary is simply authenticating the signature, not participating in the content of the document. If the lack of a seal were to be a stumbling block in seating Roland Burris in the United States Senate, a proper court order would likely order Secretary White to seal the document.

Secretary White has admitted publicly in radio interviews that his role is not one of policy in this matter, and that his refusal to certify an appointment document would not likely stop the appointment.

The United States Senate Authority to Judge Members’ Qualifications Article I, Section 5 of the US Constitution provides: “Each House shall be the judge of the … qualifications of its own members…” This would appear to allow the Senate to deny a seat to a Blagojevich appointment. The US Constitution sets forth qualifications for a United States Senator in Article I, Section 3 as follows: “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”

In 1969, the United States Supreme Court interpreted those two clauses together in the case of Powell v. McCormack. The House of Representatives had denied a seat to Adam Clayton Powell because of legal problems surrounding Mr. Powell. The Court said that a House of Congress (of which the Senate is one) did not have the authority to deny a seat to a properly credentialed candidate that met the qualifications outlined in the Constitution.

Mr. Burris is 71 years of age, a lifelong citizen of the United States and lives in Illinois. He meets the constitutional qualifications.

No Legal Authority Exists to Stop the Blagojevich Appointment

Despite the statements of Illinois Secretary of State White, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 50 other United States Senators, they do not have the authority to deny a Senate seat to a candidate duly appointed under the United States Constitution and the laws of the State of Illinois.

The copyright of the article Blagojevich Announces Senate Appointment in Law, Crime & Justice is owned by David J. Shestokas. Permission to republish Blagojevich Announces Senate Appointment in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

From the New York Times...

"There’s never been a breath of scandal about him," says one Ill. insider

By Dirk Johnson
The New York Times

CHICAGO - In Illinois, where politics ranks among the dramatic arts (sometimes the theater of the absurd), Roland W. Burris has long been seen as steady, deliberate, even boring.

For all his accomplishments — he was the first African-American elected to statewide office in Illinois, as comptroller and later as attorney general — Mr. Burris, a former tax accountant and bank examiner, has never quite been regarded as a political star.

“Very, very low key,” said Don Rose, a former Democratic political consultant in Chicago, describing Mr. Burris, 71, who was named on Tuesday by the state’s embattled governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, to fill the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. “He’s just not a terribly exciting figure. But there’s never been a breath of scandal about him.”

In Washington, leaders of the Senate have vowed to reject any replacement named by Mr. Blagojevich, who was arrested Dec. 9 on charges that he tried to solicit bribes for the empty seat. The Illinois Legislature has initiated steps to impeach Mr. Blagojevich, but he has signaled his intention to fight back.

Choice makes sense

The selection of Mr. Burris jolted the Illinois political world, but also made some sense. Some African-American politicians in Illinois, and elsewhere, have called for an African-American to fill the seat in the Senate, which will otherwise be without a black member. Mr. Burris, despite being on a losing streak in his last several elections, still commands considerable respect for breaking racial barriers in the state’s politics.

In a city famous for soaring oratory, from the likes of Mr. Obama and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, among others, Mr. Burris is known instead as a numbers cruncher. But his ambition for higher office has scarcely been any secret.

Mr. Burris has run unsuccessfully for the Senate, for mayor of Chicago, and three times for governor, including a bid against Mr. Blagojevich for the Democratic nomination in 2002. He owns a space at a mausoleum on the city’s South Side, where a wall is inscribed with some of his political achievements, but leaves space for more.

A native of Centralia, a small town in downstate Illinois, Mr. Burris was born on Aug. 8, 1937, the son of a laborer for the Illinois Central Railroad. He received his bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University, and later earned a law degree from Howard University.

After working as a bank examiner, he was named to a state budget post in the early 1970s by Gov. Dan Walker, who ultimately went to prison after being convicted for corruption. Mr. Burris served briefly in 1977 as executive director of Operation Push, the civil rights organization founded by Mr. Jackson. Mr. Burris was the state’s comptroller from 1979 to 1991, and was the state’s attorney general from 1991 to 1995. In recent years, he has worked as a political consultant.

Running for state attorney general in 1990, Mr. Burris made his strong support for abortion rights a cornerstone of his race against the Republican, Jim Ryan, an abortion opponent who was regarded as a formidable candidate. While in office, Mr. Burris aligned with the liberal wing of the state’s Democratic Party, supporting abortion rights and broader rights for gay men and lesbians.

Not 'one iota of taint'

Mr. Burris was said to have campaigned for the Senate seat, but his name was rarely mentioned among the serious contenders. He said Tuesday that he had talked on Sunday with Mr. Blagojevich, who asked if he would take the position.

At the news conference, Representative Bobby L. Rush, Democrat of Illinois, who has long been regarded as a champion among African-Americans in Chicago, delivered a strong endorsement of Mr. Burris, describing him as a politician who “has not in 40 years had one iota of taint” of wrongdoing.

Republicans in the state expressed astonishment that Mr. Blagojevich would name a replacement for the seat, but they nonetheless held their fire when it came to Mr. Burris, a politician who seems to have few vocal enemies.

Judy Baar Topinka, the Republican who ran against Mr. Blagojevich in 2006, described Mr. Burris as “a man who genuinely cares for the state of Illinois.”

Ms. Topinka expressed concern that Mr. Burris could become a pawn in a fight in Washington. State Representative Tom Cross, the Republican leader, meanwhile, emphasized that his party’s indignation about Mr. Blagojevich’s action was “not about Roland Burris.”

Some political experts said the governor had made a shrewd choice in Mr. Burris, and Mr. Rose predicted that the Senate would have a difficult time rejecting him.

“The U.S. Senate,” Mr. Rose said, “is going to be put in the worst kind of guilt-by-association situation” if Mr. Burris is rejected simply on the ground that he was named by Mr. Blagojevich.

“I’d say Burris has at least an even chance of being seated,” Mr. Rose said. “And then I think he’ll run again. This is the sort of thing he’s always wanted.”