TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Burris Might Be Legislating, But Replacements Are Gathering

ADVERTISEMENT

The New York Times

Published: March 2, 2009

CHICAGO - As Roland Burris, the junior senator from Illinois, took his first turn presiding over the Senate last week, hired staff members to fill his Washington office and announced co-sponsorship of a measure commemorating the role of slaves in building the Capitol, politicians back home were plotting who might replace him.

Gov. Patrick J. Quinn said he would give Burris, a fellow Democrat, two weeks to quit before urging Illinois lawmakers to consider a special election that could remove the senator from the seat he was appointed to after Barack Obama was elected president.

And as the prestigious Union League Club of Chicago joined a chorus last week in calling for Burris to resign, the state's attorney general, Lisa Madigan, also a Democrat, issued an opinion that such an election could pass legal muster.

Amid all of it, Burris - whose appointment by Quinn's predecessor, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, has drawn criticism at nearly every turn - has refused to resign, issued news releases and seemed not to notice the line swiftly forming behind him.

In Chicago, more than half a dozen names were quickly gaining steam as possible candidates for a Senate race in 2010, if not sooner.

The would-be contenders include Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer, who plays basketball with Obama; U.S. Reps. Mark Steven Kirk and Peter Roskam, Republicans from the Chicago suburbs; and, according to a Chicago Sun-Times gossip column late last week, William Daley, the brother of Chicago's mayor.

Still, for all the jockeying, rarely has a political race been so packed with peculiar uncertainties that would complicate any campaign, any fundraising effort, any hope of a strategy at all. And now the muddle of moving circumstances and political turmoil that has overwhelmed this state since Blagojevich was arrested on federal corruption charges in December is reaching into the elections ahead.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT