Senate decides to just ignore that signature requirement for Burris
Well, I spoke of a catch-22 between the US Senate and the State of Illinois over the appointment to the Senate of Roland Burris by soon-to-be-impeached IL Gov. Blagojevich a coupld of days ago. Seems the Senate decided to get out of it by deciding to just skip on their own Rule II.
U.S. Senate officials on Monday certified Roland Burris to fill the seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama and Senate Democratic leaders said they expect to seat the next Illinois senator on Thursday.…
“The secretary of the Senate has determined that the new credentials presented today on behalf of Mr. Burris now satisfy Senate Rules and validate his appointment to the vacant Illinois Senate seat,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement with his No. 2, Illinois senior Sen. Dick Durbin.
In other words, they just decided that whatever they already had was good enough and, despite not adhering to the letter of the Rule, they dubbed him “certified.” Which, of course, the Senate is fully capable of doing. They get to set their own rules for their own operations. I’d be really curious to know if they’d have been so quick to wave off the Rule II requirements had that been a Republican governor appointing someone and his state’s Secretary of State refusing to sign off on it. I don’t mind them changing their rules but they need to be consistent.
