Durbin in conference call with fellow Democratic senators — will have statement on Burrisbout Roland?

December 30th, 2008 at 01:03pm Chuck Sweeny

Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin, D-IL, and other Democratic senators are in a quandary over what to do about Blagojevich’s pending appointment of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Barack Obama.

Christina Mulka, Durbin press spokeswoman, told me at 12:50 p.m. CST that Durbin and fellow Democratic leaders of the Senate are in a conference call right now, presumably to talk about the Burris appointment among other matters.

Mulka reminded me that Durbin was one of the first to call for a special election to name Obama’s replacement.

“It is a risk that a Democrat might not be elected. But there would be no cloud of suspicion. The senator places a high value on the  the people of Illinois electing their next senator.”

 She said that while Senate Democrats did not totally rule out seating a Blagojevich appointee, “they had previously said they may exercise their right not to seat anybody” named by Blago, who is charged with corruption by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and also is facing impeachment by the Illinois General Assembly.

“Technically, process wise, the Senate has authority not to seat someone. It’s happened four times in U.S. history, and two of those rejections were from Illinois,” Mulka said.

“Under the circumstances that Blagojevich finds himself in, it would be very tough to take an appointment he made seriously,” she added.

 

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