Comments on: Senator Burris: Much Ado About Little

By: Blagojevich, “The Chicago Way”, y Obama: Actualizaciones de una decepción « Sarah Palin en Español

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:51:45 +0000

[...] necesario para que sea efectivo. Lo malo es que parece que, por ley, no puede hacerlo, como recuerda Jazz Shaw en The Moderate Voice: El Sr. White no tiene ese poder y el negarse a certificar el nombramiento no hace nada más que [...]

By: LadyLogician

LadyLogician — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:41:51 +0000

Simon – Burris has never really been that ambitious. He sat in the AG's office for 14 years before he ever decided to think about running for governor. Plus as elrod said -Burris has no base of power. Part of the reason why he is a multiple loser for governor is because of his long running feud with the Daley clan! If you don't have a base in Chicago, you might as well hang it up!

By: elrod

elrod — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 08:55:45 +0000

Simon,
All of your examples were longtime Senators. Burris is a multiple loser candidate for statewide office. He might run again in 2010 but he has no real base of power.

By: SimonDodd

SimonDodd — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:16:12 +0000

LadyLogician, what's your basis for saying that “[a]t 71, he will not run for a 6 year term”? Senators tend to linger past their sell-by date. To pick only some obvious low hanging fruit, Jesse Helms sought reelection in 1996 aged 75; Dan Akaka was 82 when reelected in 2006; Frank Laughtenberg and Ted Stevens ran for reelection this year aged 84 and 85 respectively; Robert Byrd ran for reelection in 2006 aged 89; and I think Strom Thurmond was 94 when he last ran for reelection.

By: LadyLogician

LadyLogician — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:25:28 +0000

Actually Burris is a very smart, safe pick. At 71, he will not run for a 6 year term. He is a seat warmer – plain and simple. With a relatively benign seat warmer in place, both parties can groom their best pick (in the case of the ILGOP probably bring in another ringer from out of state….) and start the 2010 campaign right away.

By: SimonDodd

SimonDodd — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:14:08 +0000

I get to the same place as you do on White via a slightly different route. White's argument is stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place.

On the one hand, he may not have been given any discretion to refuse to sign in the first place. If state law (including state Constitutional law) merely assigns the SecState a ministerial duty of signing, sealing and delivering the commission, he has no more right to refuse to do so than Mr. Madison did to refuse to deliver Mr. Marbury's commission, in which case White would violate Illinois law by refusing to sign.

On the other hand, if state law does give the SecState discretion, that state law is problematic. The legislature's authority to give the Governor temporary appointment power arises from the 17th Amendment, and is limited by the same. The legislature cannot give more than it has been delegated the power to give, or authorize someone who it was not empowered to authorize. And what was it authorized to do? It was authorized to "empower the executive [of a state] to make temporary appointments." Quite obviously, the legislature of Illinois could not authorize itself to make a temporary appointment, and it couldn't authorize the Chief Justice of Illinois to make a temporary appointment. Assuming that the 17th Amendment's reference to "the executive" means the chief executive, i.e. the Governor, if Illinois has functionally given the SecState authority to veto the Governor's choice, it has given something that it had no power to give.

By: StockBoySF

StockBoySF — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:13:22 +0000

What's the US Senate's (at least the Dems) motivation in blocking Blagojevich's appointment? Do the Senate Dems have someone else in mind, do they simply want to make sure that whoever is appointed is not tainted by the scandal (which might open up an avenue of attack from Republicans…. though they can't control their own members' actions with regards to resigning over scandals, even after being convicted of felony charges) or is there some other reason?

By: Hot Air » Blog Archive » Blago gets even with Democrats

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Blago gets even with Democrats — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:50:32 +0000

[...] a potential procedural block. However, Illinois law gives White little room to maneuver, as Jazz Shaw points out: Were we to somehow accept Secretary White’s premise, then every Governor in the [...]