Academic

Blago, Burris, the Senate, and Powell v. McCormack

By Calvin Massey

    Now that Rod Blagojevich, the thoroughly discredited greedhead Governor of Illinois, has appointed Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat, and Senate Democrats have vowed to refuse to seat Burris, the obvious question is whether the Senate has the constitutional authority to refuse to seat Burris.  Powell v. McCormack held that the House could not refuse to seat Adam Clayton Powell, so long as he met the three constitutionally specified qualifications: age, residency, and citizenship.  Powell  appears to be squarely applicable to this case.  Perhaps the Senate could claim that it is exercising its textually separate power to judge the election of its members, but that is implausible given that Burris is appointed under the constitutional authority of the Seventeenth Amendment, not elected.  If the Senate is adamant that no appointee of the reprehensible Governor Blago should be seated, a better gambit would be to seat him (thus complying with Powell) and then to expel him because of doubt concerning the integrity of the process by which he obtained the Senate seat.  Powell did not address the independent issue of expulsion, a judgment of the Senate that does not rely on assessment of the constitutionally specified qualifications of its members.  

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on December 31, 2008 (boomark / email).