The Congressional Black Caucus - Press Release - Congressional Black Caucus Supports Seating of Burris

PRESS RELEASE

	For Immediate Release January 8, 2009	Contact: Nicole Williams (202) 225-2661
	Congressional Black Caucus Supports Seating of Burris
	(Washington, D.C.)- Yesterday, the Congressional Black Caucus voted unanimously in support of the seating of Roland Burris to the vacant Illinois Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama. In a letter to Senate Leadership, they detailed their reasons for this decision. The letter read as follows: January 7, 2009 The Honorable Harry Reid Senate Majority Leader United States Capitol S-221 Washington, D.C. 20515 Dear Majority Leader Reid: Today, we met as members of the Congressional Black Caucus and voted unanimously that Roland Burris should be seated by the Senate. As members of Congress, our unique experience has always compelled us to look to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, the only principled guidance available when determining issues such as whether to seat Roland Burris, appointed by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill the seat of President-elect Barack Obama. The governor of Illinois hopes to leave the Senate with a Hobson’s choice: to assume that the scandal surrounding the governor transfers to his Senate appointee, although the governor continues to happily serve and otherwise to make all the decisions assigned to his office, or to have the Senate preempt the available state and federal legal processes by refusing to recognize the governor’s appointment to the Senate. We believe that the Constitution, as written and applied in the leading case, forecloses the Senate’s discretion. Article I says, “No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.” When Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was excluded from the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court strictly interpreted this provision in Powell vs. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969). Although an election rather than an appointment was at issue in that case, Chief Justice Warren, in a 7 to 1 decision, left little room for qualifications other than those detailed in Article I. The Powell decision relied on James Madison’s admonition that to do otherwise would be tantamount to “ ‘vesting an improper and dangerous power in the legislature.’ ” Moreover, the 17th Amendment allows “the legislature of any state [to] empower the executive. . .to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct,” and the Illinois Code (10 ILCS 5/25-8), in turn, provides that “the Governor shall make temporary appointment[s] to fill such vacancy until the next election.” The Senate must now make a decision freighted with history. No qualified person, appointed or elected according to applicable law and procedures, has ever been excluded from the Senate. We believe that the Senate can fashion an acceptable solution without ignoring either the Constitution or the Senate’s important authority to preserve its institutional integrity. We ask you to turn the governor’s intended Hobson’s choice into an opportunity to demonstrate that observing the Constitution’s principled requirements and the Senate’s institutional prerogatives need not be at odds. Sincerely, Barbara Lee Chairwoman Eleanor Holmes Norton Member of Congress Bobby Rush Member of Congress Emmanuel Cleaver II Member of Congress Donna M. Christensen Member of Congress G.K. Butterfield Member of Congress Yvette D. Clarke Member of Congress John Conyers Member of Congress Charles B. Rangel Member of Congress Edolphus Towns Member of Congress John Lewis Member of Congress Donald M. Payne Member of Congress Maxine Waters Member of Congress Sanford Bishop Member of Congress Corrine Brown Member of Congress James E. Clyburn Member of Congress Alcee L. Hastings Member of Congress Eddie Bernice Johnson Member of Congress Robert C. Scott Member of Congress Melvin L. Watt Member of Congress Bennie G. Thompson Member of Congress Chaka Fattah Member of Congress Sheila Jackson Lee Member of Congress Elijah E. Cummings Member of Congress Danny K. Davis Member of Congress Carolyn C. Kilpatrick Member of Congress Gregory W. Meeks Member of Congress Williams Lacy Clay Member of Congress Diane E. Watson Member of Congress Kendrick Meek Member of Congress David Scott Member of Congress Al Green Member of Congress Gwen Moore Member of Congress Keith Ellison Member of Congress Hank Johnson Member of Congress Laura Richardson Member of Congress Andre Carson Member of Congress Donna F. Edwards Member of Congress Marcia L. Fudge Member of Congress
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