Burris Admits Being Asked for Donation by Blagojevich
U.S. Sen. Roland Burris (D. Illinois), the surprise pick by Blagojevich to take over President Barack Obama’s senate seat, admitted in an affidavit filed February 5 that Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich asked him for fundraising help before appointing him.
It was for the first time that Burris admitted that the disgraced governor asked a favor in return for the political appointment… and it spells trouble for the freshmen senator.
The Illinois legislature impeached Blagojevich last month; he was the first governor in the state’s history to be impeached – it says a lot about Blagojevich’s corruption that the most corrupt state of the U.S. considered his acts illegal, corrupt and unworthy of an elected official.
During the impeachment hearings in the Illinois House, Burris denied Blagojevich tried to sell Obama’s senate seat to him. He portrayed his appointment as a surprise pick, both to the senate and to himself. The new revelations cast the ’surprise’ in an entirely different light, however.
Burris says he filed the new affadivit after reading his testimony and concluding he didn’t share the whole story with the House panel.
Interestingly enough, the new senator only realized this after he was sworn in. Funny that.
Whatever the case, Republicans and Democrats are wise to look into Burris´ dealings with Blagojevich. Although they could’ve done little to prevent Burris from being seated, the new revelations imply he may have been willing to Obama’s senate seat which is rather obviously illegal or at least immoral.
If not, one wonders whether Blago and Burris agreed to a different kind of deal, possibly aimed at reviving Blago’s political career a couple of years later.
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So here’s an obvious question; if the investigation shows that Burris indeed made that asked for donation, is there any way to remove him from office? I mean it’s fairly obvious that if he did essentially bribe his way into his post he is a disgrace and shouldn’t be there, but how hard would it be, practically speaking, to boot him out before the next election, where he’d lose in the primary anyway?
I should note that even if Burris did NOT bribe his way in he shouldn’t be there. An obviously corrupt governor shouldn’t have the power to appoint dog-catcher, let alone senator. In fact, the way governors are given the power to simply appoint a senator by royal decree is, I think, insane. At the most I could see a governor giving an transitional place-holder post to someone while a special election was organized. That’s too much power in one hand without a single check to it to prevent disasters.
Claudia, until the law is changed shouldn’t the state of Illinois follow its own laws. As far as I know there was no legal obstacle to the appointment of the Senator.
surprise not me. i know it from the beginning when the newspaper told us the American people that he gave money to Blagojevich and his layer company that Burris work for also gave money to Blagojevich. im not surprise just disappointing.
From what I’ve read it sounds like Chicago politics as usual.
OMG! A party hack asked another party hack of the same party to help him raise campaign funds! It must be corruption! (ROFLMAO)
Without an open quid pro quo that’s an absolute and complete nothing of a story. Pols and their friends ask other pols in their party to help them raise campaign funds each and every day in each and every state. It’s how the whole damn party fundraising system works.
In fact, the way governors are given the power to simply appoint a senator by royal decree is, I think, insane.
That insanity is from the “royal decree” called the Seventeenth Amendment to the US Constitution, duly ratified in 1913, which removed the power to pick US senators from state legislatures and instead gave it to the people of the state and (in cases of inter-election vacancies) to their directly elected representative, the Governor. The amendment was the result of DECADES of major dysfunctionality resulting from open corruption in state legislatures and vicious partisan gamesmanship that often left states without seated senators for prolonged periods. Gaps of months to years were not uncommon, and litigation and deadlocks were commonplace. Delaware, for example, did not send a Senator to Congress for four years at the turn of the century.
The guv appointment scheme leaves one person (a directly elected one tasked with representing the entire state population) directly responsible and accountable, rather than diffusing the dysfunctionality and corruption throughout the entire system to the point where no one is responsible or accountable. As the old saying goes, it’s the worst system there is, except for all the others.
The way the appointment process works is ridiculous. There should not be a governor appointing anyone that is normally decided by general election.
I agree with Tully that this doesn’t necessarily scream corruption to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was, but the evidence so far isn’t convincing.
But I disagree that the appointment system is okay. We should simply have special elections when a Senator leaves their office.
Exactly. I’m not saying there wasn’t a good reason to remove the power from the legislature, but I don’t see how removing the power from a potentially corrupt legislature and giving it to a potentially corrupt governor is any improvement, other than the increase in the speed of the appointment. Yes I know that special elections cost money, but at least you give the voters a say in who they want representing them for the next 2 years.
I know that demonstrating law-breaking in this case might be difficult because of the nature of the allegations and the decidedly gray tone of this area of politics even in the best of times, but the fact that it’s difficult to me doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be attempted. If he paid to get the seat that’s corruption and I’d like to see at least a good faith effort made to hold him accountable, even if I know it wouldn’t be easy.