“BUT THAT’LL SCREW UP ALL MY PLANS…”

1/8/09

If the major concern of the political powers-that-be in the state of Illinois (the city of Chicago, really) were to clear up the Burris mess, there would be a very easy way to accomplish this goal: Lieutenant (and soon to be) Governor Quinn could simply say that if (when, really) he becomes governor, he would appoint Roland Burris to President-elect Obama’s old Senate seat. That would provide the political cover for Secretary of State Jesse White and the profiles in courage that constitute the Democratic leadership of the U.S. Senate to seat Mr. Burris and be done with it. The Democrats keep their seat, Obama loses one distraction, and the Democrats in Chicago put one of their own in the (Ha!) world’s greatest deliberative body.

So why doesn’t Pat Quinn give Burris the nod? I still think this is because a deal has been cut (See my 12/30/08 post) that would have Quinn appoint Lisa Madigan to the seat when Mr. Quinn assumes the governorship (Again, I only know what I read in the papers. No one has told me anything about this, and I don’t even know anyone who would be able to tell me anything about this.), and a putting Mr. Burris in the Senate would bollix up the whole deal.

Perhaps I am wrong and there is no such deal in the hopper. There may be other reasons that Mr. Quinn will not simply affirm Mr. Burris’s appointment. Quinn, being a longtime reformer, may find Mr. Burris, a garden variety Chicago pol, and not an especially outstanding one at that (Again, see my seminal 12/30/08 post.), unacceptable and may want to appoint someone who is, like Mr. Quinn, reform minded. If this is the case, it is hard to see how Lisa Madigan, except for her last name (Admittedly, last names count for a lot, in many, many ways, in Chicago politics.), does not qualify as a reformer. Perhaps Mr. Quinn, either because he is cowed by the race-baiting tactics of Mr. Burris, Bobby Rush, et. al. or because he sincerely believes that Mr. Obama’s is a “Black” seat (so much for the color-blindedness of your typical politician, but especially your typical Democratic politician), would like to appoint a reform minded Black politician, which would exclude Mr. Burris for one reason and Ms. Madigan for at least one other.

The whole Burris morass could be resolved today with a word from Pat Quinn. That Mr. Quinn is not uttering the necessary word tells me that a deal for this Senate seat has been struck, and the only thing that stands in its way is Mr. Blagojevich’s hanging around like the ghost of Jacob Marley.