Senator-Designate Roland Burris should be in Washington D.C. right now- I can't find anything on whether or not anyone cares about that or is even bothering to talk to him.
My take on this whole sticky situation is this: it's complicated. The whole debate over Burris is one of those debates where both sides have equally valid points- and they do and the guy is qualified and the United States Senate, while not as ghastly and reactionary as say the House of Lords in Britain is badly in need of some modernization (little less country club, little more legislative body, please?) but the fact remains that yes, Blagojevich is still Governor having not yet been impeached- thus having the power to make appointments and yes, the Senate can (and probably will) drag its feet on whether or not to seat Burris at all and they seemingly have the right to do that as well.
Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush seemed to want to make this a racial thing- pointing out that the Senate wouldn't and shouldn't refuse to seat a qualified African-American in a legislative body that has had an horrifically bad record at seating (or electing) minorities of any kind to begin with, but I think things have changed ever so slightly now. As a commentator (Clarence Page) on NPR pointed out this afternoon, Senator Obama didn't just vanished into nothing, he's going to be President- which means that trying to force white guilt into the debate might not just be as effective as Congressmen Rush would like.
In the end: if the Illinois State Legislature would have passed a law mandating a special election, we wouldn't be in this mess. If you want to blame someone, blame them.
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