Harry Reid Refuses to Seat Roland Burris

Majority Leader Harry Reid has refused to seat Democratic-appointee Roland Burris to Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat. The Los Angeles Times reports:

President-elect Barack Obama's appointed successor was turned away when he appeared at the U.S. Capitol to take his seat today.

Roland Burris announced the decision to deny him the seat as he stood before a large throng of reporters and cameras in the rain outside the Capitol building.

Speaking just an hour before the convening of the 111th Congress, Burris said he was looking at a host of options for getting the seat.

"I'm presenting myself as the legally appointed senator from the state of Illinois. It is my hope and prayer that they recognize that the appointment is legal," he said earlier in a nationally broadcast interview.

Burris dismissed the Senate Democratic leadership's position that he cannot be seated because he was appointed by a governor accused in a criminal complaint of trying to benefit financially from his authority to fill the seat that Obama vacated after winning the presidential election.

Burriss said his belief is that his appointment is constitutional and that "I have no knowledge of where a secretary of state has veto power over a governor carrying out his constitutional duties."

Burris also maintained on CBS's "The Early Show" that the announcement by Gov. Rod Blagojevich Monday of a date for an election for a successor to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., proves the governor still has legal authority to carry out his duties. Emanuel will be Obama's White House chief of staff.

"There's nothing wrong with Roland Burris and there's nothing wrong with the appointment," Burris said.

Burris has found little support among fellow Democrats.

The Senate was scheduled to convene at noon Tuesday with its newest members. Yet the controversy over the appointment and the ongoing dispute over election results in Minnesota practically guaranteed that both seats would remain empty by day's end.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday that Burris would not be permitted to take his seat because Burris "has not been certified by the state of Illinois," a reference to incomplete paperwork that only touches on the dispute. Senate Democrats maintain that Burris' appointment is tainted because of the charges against Blagojevich.

I'm frankly still trying to figure out the politics of all this. It can't be that Democrats are trying to advance a reformist anti-corruption agenda. On the House side, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is set to roll back the GOP's congressional reforms dating to 1995's "Contract With America" under former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. As Tigerhawk notes:

Nancy Pelosi is amending House rules to revert to the status quo ante 1994, when Newt Gingrich and the Contract Republicans imposed a series of reforms to improve the "fairness" of the "People's House," including term limits for committee chairmen. As outraged Republicans have observed, this is hardly consistent with the spirit of "hope and change."

Check also Flopping Aces, which has photos of Roland Burris literally being shown the door. I don't normally worry about things like this, but there's some troubling racial symbolism in an eminent black man and state leader being ignominiously forced out of the back halls of a majoritarian white-power institution. The Democrats need to think again.