So back in January, when now-ex-Illinois-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, D-Joliet, appointed Roland Burris to the Senate, I had this to say:
Burris’ appointment is offensive, and it should be fought until it can’t be fought anymore.
Let’s not mince words. Rod Blagojevich was arrested for trying to sell this appointment. Nobody — not Abraham Lincoln, not Mahatma Gandhi, not Jesus Christ — can be appointed to this seat by Blagojevich without being tainted by that very fact. That Burris doesn’t appear to have given Blagojevich money is beside the point; nobody can be appointed to this seat without being fatally compromised.
Burris, of course, should have done the honorable thing and refused the appointment, but like all politicians, he’s got an ego, and he wants to believe that his wonderfulness can somehow remove the taint of the appointment. It can’t. Indeed, by accepting the appointment of an accused felon, Burris has proven that he does not have the moral or ethical judgment to be a United States Senator. (That others, like Ted Stevens and Larry Craig, also do not is no reason to accept Burris’ shortcomings.)
Now, at the time, some of my ideological cohort challenged me on that. After all, there was no specific evidence of wrongdoing on Burris’ part; Blagojevich was a bad guy, but maybe Burris was okay. And besides, wasn’t it a good idea just to get this over with, rather than dragging things out for a fight that would only end up making the Democrats look bad? Wasn’t it better to get Burris in the Senate to have his vote?
Well, until Al Franken is seated, no, it wasn’t, but that’s beside the point. The point was that Burris had already demonstrated that he was a bad guy; he took the appointment of an accused felon, a man who had been arrested for trying to sell that very appointment to the highest bidder.
Which is why the latest revelations about Sen. Burris are not surprising in the least:
The benefit of the doubt had already been stretched thin and taut by the time Roland Burris offered his third version of the events leading to his appointment to the U.S. Senate. It finally snapped like a rubber band, popping him on that long Pinocchio nose of his, when he came out with version four.
Let’s see if we have it right: Burris had zero contact with any of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s cronies about his interest in the Senate seat being vacated by President Barack Obama— unless you count that conversation with former chief of staff Lon Monk, and, on further reflection, the ones with insiders John Harris, Doug Scofield and John Wyma and, oh yeah, the governor’s brother and fund-raising chief, Robert Blagojevich. But Burris didn’t raise a single dollar for the now ex-governor as a result of those contacts because that could be construed as a quid pro quo and besides, everyone he asked refused to donate.
That’s the long and the short of it. Burris was more than happy to provide quid to Blago, if only he could find some; he tried to raise money despite being aware that Blagojevich was facing jail time. He was more than willing to participate in the selling of the Senate seat once held by the President of the United States — on the purchasing end.
And given how many times his story has changed, it’s not out of the question to wonder just what price Burris paid.
Burris is now facing a probe in Illinois regarding whether he perjured himself in testimony to the impeachment panel. He’s a laughingstock. He’s going to damage the Democrats’ chances to hold the seat in 2010 no matter what he does. And this is going to happen precisely because the Democrats were too eager to hold the seat in the short term to risk a special election for the seat.
Unfortunately, it’s now too late for the Senate to play for time while the Illinois legislature puts together a special election; Burris is in the Senate, and while an ethics probe is probably waiting for him, it’s likely that action will be delayed pending the perjury probe. If the Ted Stevens precedent is still in effect — and it is — the Senate will hold its collective breath and hope that they don’t have to do anything rash like expelling the junior senator from the Land of Lincoln. They’ll hope that he just decides not to stand for election, and that they can simply watch him walk out the door two years from now.
But until the day he walks out the door, he’ll be a reminder that the Democrats had a chance to stand for ethics above all else — and failed, for simple, short-term partisan gain. That’s the kind of thing that leads to long-term partisan damage.
Unfortunately though, they were right that he would have ended up winning a lawsuit to be seated long before being convicted of purchasing Obama’s Senate Seat. I wish they had pushed for a special election and I hope that having learned this lesson, the rest of the congress-critters push through the legislation to reform the Senate replacement system. And hopefully we can impeach Burris soon.
It’s starting to look like Sen. Burris committed perjury. It certainly looks as though he pulled a Clinton during his testimony. My position at the time was that it wasn’t right for the Senate to just leave his appointment lay; either they should seat the man or investigate him. They went for door #1. Looks like they should have chosen door #2.
Sen. Burris gave his original testimony in Springfield, Illinois’ capital, which is in Sangamon County. State Attorney Lisa Madigan is consulting with the Sangamon County State’s Attorney’s office. They’re going to investigate Sen. Burris for perjury. If he’s found guilty then the Senate should expel Burris. Meanwhile, the General Assembly should pass a bill to set up a special elections to fill Senate vacancies. I actually have hope that this scandal will get that to happen.
BTW, those of you who follow Illinois politics and don’t read the Chicago Tribune should add it to your reading list. Their lead editorial Sunday proclaimed that they are sick of Illinois politics, they’re sick of the cost to the taxpayers that corruption entails and they’re sick of people accepting it as inevitable. They intend to make it their major crusade from now on.
The previous few days they printed a lot about Abraham Lincoln – it was the 200th anniversary of his birth – including reprints of editorials they had previously written about Lincoln. The first one was the one they originally printed when they endorsed him for President, the last one was the one they printed on the occasion of his assassination, and the middle one was one they printed extolling his character and honesty. I wonder if that was a lead-in?
But until the day he walks out the door, he’ll be a reminder that the Democrats had a chance to stand for ethics above all else — and failed, for simple, short-term partisan gain. That’s the kind of thing that leads to long-term partisan damage.
Hear, hear. Not that I think the Republicans would have done any different, or for any different motivation, mind you. The two political parties see themselves as essential to the Republic and think that their welfare and the welfare of their elected members is of paramount importance.
Time we reminded them different.
I personally cannot think of one politician that will show up on my 2006 ballot that we couldn’t do without. I happen to have some local precedent. My local school board had been pretty much doing whatever the hell it felt like for years, including mismanaging two school construction projects and bumping taxes year after year while watching the performance of our middle school graduates be the worst among the 8 middle schools that feed our local high school. Finally the locals boiled over, and every incumbent got voted out. Things changed, for the better.
RonF,
As I recall, your position was that “there’s a vanishingly low probability that Roland Burris has cut any kind of deal, I really don’t see why Burris shouldn’t accept this appointment. … I view the process of Burris’ appointment as limited to his actual appointment. … Unless any bank records show any transfer of funds or a bug actually recorded a conversation that is at odds with this, I don’t see where there’s much they can uncover that would justify saying ‘Whoa, this was a corrupt process, we will not seat Mr. Burris.'”
PG, thank christ someone else remembers what RonF was actually saying at the time.
—Myca
I admit that I underestimated the mendacity of Sen. Burris. But actually, if you look at what’s being talked about, there was in fact no bribe. What we have here is Blago asking Burris to raise some money for him. Burris failed, and never got him a dime. Then Blago appointed him anyway. Burris seems to have lied about who he talked to and when during his testimony and avoided talking about what he tried, but so far I haven’t seen any testimony that is inconsistent with the assertion that Burris never gave Blago anything for his Senate seat – and that’s what at the time was at issue.
Burris deserves to be tossed out of the Senate for lying to the Illinois General Assembly but not for giving Blago a bribe; as far as I can tell so far he didn’t.
As far as what I said, this is from my post #50 in that thread:
“The issue of the State legislative panel seems pretty iffy to me, though. That panel is not under the control of the Senate and has no obligation to it. If the Senate has issues with Mr. Burris’ qualifications, the Senate should be looking into it and not sloughing off the responsibility to someone else whose agenda, timing and objective they have no influence over. The Senate’s job is to make a decision in a timely manner, not pass the buck to someone else.
…
It’s reasonable to enter an inquiry as to whether he did make the appointment properly. What I say is that the Senate needs to either approve the appointment or make the inquiry. If the Rules Committee wants to hold hearings, fine. But then get going on it – make it a priority and make it happen. Neither seating Burris nor making an inquiry is wrong and deprives Illinois citizens of their representation in the Senate.”
I figured that Burris hadn’t given money to Blago for his Senate seat, and I was right. It turns out that this was not necessarily due from a lack of trying, but no money or other consideration exchanged hands. And I did have no problem if the Senate wanted to investigate on their own and hold up Burris’ appointment until that process completed.
RonF,
Just to clarify, you’re saying that you’re only troubled by the fact that Burris seems to have lied and not by his reason to have lied: to wit, that his willingness to TRY to raise money for Blago (despite lack of success in doing so) probably would have made his accession to the Senate seat more difficult? In other words, if only he’d been honest from the beginning, you’d still think him totally appropriate to be your Senator, even though the only reason there wasn’t “pay to play” is that Burris was unable, not *unwilling*, to pay?
Well, yes. In exactly the same way that we don’t punish failed murderers, we don’t punish failed bribers. It’s the successful completion of the action, not the attempt, that is abhorrent.
Jake, I imagine your bedroom as a plain white room with a gigantic poster above your bed of the word “SNARK” in letters 2 feet high.
It makes me happy.
—Myca
Oh, no, PG. I have to admit that when I wrote the original post I figured that there were two possible scenarios – a) Burris gave Blago a bribe, or b) Burris didn’t give Blago a bribe. I figured that “a” was highly unlikely because at that point pretty much everyone in town knew that Blago was being taped by the FBI. The idea that there was a scenario c) where Burris tries to get money for Blago but fails didn’t occur to me, nor did it occur to anybody else I bet.
So it wasn’t a bribe, since no actual money or other value changed hands. And I’m not sure if openly raising money for someone satsifies the legal definition of a bribe – I leave that to the lawyers. If the answer is “Yes”, then fine. But regardless of that legal point it was certainly an attempt at a quid pro quo, at the very least. On that basis alone I’d have opposed Burris appointment to the Senate. The difference is that without the perjury there’s no legal hook to unseat Burris, whereas with the perjury there is. The moral issue is different. At the time there was no knowledge or specific assertion that Burris had even made an offer of this nature, so it was appropriate to say “Either seat him or investigate him.” The Senate failed to do the latter and therefore did the former.
Had I known of this situation then, I’d have wanted to not seat him and would have tried to figure out if this was sufficient legal grounds for the Senate to deny him a seat. I’m not sure that it is. But in any case we didn’t know about this then, and to say “Well, we suspect that this kind of thing happened so even though we have no actual evidence that it did we won’t seat him” seemed wrong to me then and still seems wrong now – it’s more the rule of man than the rule of law. Hindsight tell us that the Senate should have brought people in and questioned them. But, and I suspect for the reasons given in Jeff’s last paragraph plus the race card that numerous Chicago politicians were playing, they didn’t.
Meanwhile, I’m curious about whether if Burris had revealed this himself he would have been seated as Senator. The Illinois House was meeting to determine whether there were grounds to impeach Blago. It had exactly no say as to whether or not Burris’ appointment was legitimate. Burris had nothing to fear from the Illinois General Assembly. So he had to be worrying about the reaction by the Senate to this. Would the Senate have had grounds to deny Burris his seat on the basis that he tried and failed to raise money for Blago? It would have made it a lot more likely that the Senate would have at least tried to delay his seating. But if it was shown to have gone no further – no money changed hands, no actual favor was done – would they have had legal grounds to block him from the Senate? The fact that you don’t favor an outcome doesn’t mean that the law shouldn’t be followed.
Heck, when my wife heard about this “I’d like to be Senator” “Would you raise money for us?” “I’ll try.” deal she said “So what? That’s what they all do.” That attitude is unfortunately quite prevalent in Illinois. It’s got to stop. DeToqueville was right – in a democracy you get the government you deserve.
I’d like to see Burris out of that Senate seat. If he committed perjury (and it looks that way right now) then hopefully that can be used as the legal reason to do so. But the law is more important than clipping Roland Burris’ tenure as Senator. I want the law followed. If that gets Burris out of that seat, fine. If not, then that means that the electorate needs to be a lot more vigilant than it has been regarding who they elect to serve them, who runs their political parties and what kind of laws (e.g., gubernatorial appointment vs. special elections) get enacted and serve them best. It does not mean to shortcut the law as it stands.
RonF,
You seem to have a mistaken belief that an act must be completed in order for it to be a crime. On the contrary, attempt also is a crime. Blagojevich himself was indicted for attempted bribery. Your obsession with whether money actually changed hands, whether there are bank records, etc. prevents you from seeing the crimes that were committed. And your claim that attempt as the crime didn’t occur to anyone indicates that you forgot my efforts in that prior thread to point out that actually, Fitzgerald *didn’t* need to have bank records in order to charge a crime.
Sure, you thought it was snark. Right up until the point that RonF repeated it totally seriously.
To rephrase for RonF:
I thought that I could make this stuff up. I was wrong.
Jake,
Technically, if Hinckley hadn’t pretty clearly had the mens rea (inasmuch as an insane person has a mens rea) to *assassinate* Reagan, he still would have been charged with assault and battery, which is a crime that he completed by getting a bullet into Reagan (not to mention bullets into three other people).
PG,
Sure. Go ahead and poke holes in my analogy and ruin all my fun.
Jake,
Didn’t you know? It’s one of the tasks they give us when we join the bar.
That’s right, it wasn’t a murder. Reagan lived. It was attempted murder.
O.K., fine. There’s such a thing as attempted bribery. Now, is the attempt to do some fundraising for Blago characterized as a bribe legally? Or is that something for a jury to decide? Contrast this with Blago saying something along the lines of “The head of that hospital has to contribute money to my campaign fund or else I won’t approve their expansion application.” That’s more straightforward. This seems a little more indirect – as far as I know there’s no such conversation or statement having been made. Couple that indirection with the fact that Burris apparently made a desultory and ineffective attempt to raise money (and politicians raise money for each other all the time) and then Blago appointed him anyway and while I understand that attempting to commit a crime is criminal in itself I’m curious to know if that go far enough in this case to sustain a case for bribery? I’m not a legal expert – I’ll defer to someone with legal expertise in the matter. Frankly I think that Blago picked Burris and did it at that time because Burris is black and because Blago wanted to defy the people who were telling him to stop acting as Governor and relinquish at least his responsbilities and at most his office to someone else.
I wanted Burris seated because all known evidence was that he’d been appointed legally and no one was acting to determine whether or not that was true. I had no problem with the Senate doing that determination before seating him, but they failed to act. I wanted them to act in accordance with the law then and I want them to act in accordance with the law now. Sen. Burris appears to be guilty of perjury at least and possibly bribery. The Trib’s lead editorial yesterday called for him to resign. I’m torn between saying “good idea” and “no, put him on trial and let’s hear some testimony.” Sunlight being the best disinfectant and all that.
Is there such a thing as “attempted bribery”?
For about the 4th time in my conversations with you on this topic, YES, and you should know this because Blagojevich himself was indicted for attempted bribery. If you’d read the link I provided to the Wikipedia article on attempt, theoretically almost any crime that involves intent can be converted into the crime of attempt: it’s basically doing the best you can to commit the crime, and just failing to actually complete it. Hinckley did his best to murder Reagan; Blagojevich did his best to be bribed; Burris apparently did his best to bribe him.
Democrats vote down special election for Roland Burris Senate seat
Not that the Republicans might not have pulled the same stunt if the tables were turned, mind you. But let’s just bank this against any future “holier than thou” claims from the Democrats the next time the Republicans get caught pulling some stunt of their own. And of course, our current Governor Patrick Quinn has a lengthy history of being a “progressive” and had called for a special election in such circumstances before becoming governor. But now, after being threatened with accusations of racism after calling for Sen. Burris to step down, now has backed off. They’re hiding behind the cost of the special election, estimated (by who I don’t know) at some $50 million. So at least we know what the price of representative government in Illinois is – $50 million.
It would be nice to hear from our President on whether his successor should be chosen by the voters or not, but I doubt it will happen. He’s not going to buck the Illinois political structure.
I am curious as to why this would kill the matter. Why can’t the measure be introduced into the Illinois House? If they pass the bill it would put more pressure on the Illinois Senate. That’s how the last Illinois state government ethics bill got passed. It got introduced in the Illinois Senate and got killed in committee. It then got introduced in the Illinois House, where it passed. That bill then went to the Illinois Senate where the Senate President (then Sen. Emil Jones, a big Blago supporter) initially sat on it but eventually allowed it to go to a vote (which it passed) because of public pressure.
The Democrats are in a bind. Standing in the way of a special election flouts the will of the electorate. But this pits their special interest groups against each other – “progressives” against blacks. That’s what the politics of division gets you. Somehow an Illinois Senate seat has become a “black” seat, just like Cook County President and others, and there is now a concept of entitlement attached to it, where it’s more important that the holder be black than that they be honest or effective.