Dianne Feinstein, maverick - Dem, Ill
It’s been a busy couple days for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).
On Monday, Feinstein — the incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee — put out a statement in which she criticized the choice of Leon Panetta to run the CIA, saying, “My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.”
Tuesday, Feinstein spoke with both President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, her office released a new statement in which she took a more neutral position, but still didn’t offer Panetta her support. “I have been contacted by both President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden, and they have explained to me the reasons why they believe Leon Panetta is the best candidate for CIA Director,” she said. “I look forward to speaking with Mr. Panetta about the critical issues facing the intelligence community and his plans to address them.”
Then, shortly after that, she was making news, once again for publicly disagreeing with her public’s leaders. This time, the difference was over Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s choice to fill Obama’s Senate seat. Feinstein now says Burris should be seated if and when he’s able to get Illinois’ secretary of state to give him the signature necessary to make his paperwork official. “The question, really, is one in my view of law,” the senator said, according to Politico. “And that is, does the governor have the power to make the appointment? And the answer is yes. Is the governor discredited? And the answer is yes.
“Does that affect his appointment power? And the answer is no until certain things happen.”
As Josh Marshall observes, Feinstein probably has her legal analysis right. That doesn’t make her public dissent on the Burris question any less embarrassing for Majority Leader Harry Reid, though.
Dems won’t try to seat Franken - Barack Obama
If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has his way, the Senate will be short two members even after the swearing-in ceremony set to take place later today.
Reid has previously said that he will not allow Roland Burris, the man Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed to fill President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant seat, to be sworn in. Now he’s also made it clear that he won’t try to seat Al Franken, at least for now. Republicans had promised to block any such attempt; the former comedian may have come out on top in the recount of his race against Republican Norm Coleman, but legal challenges remain, and they’re hoping Coleman can still pull out a victory somehow.
New at Reason: Steve Chapman on Why the Senate Should Seat Roland Burris - Barack Obama
One of the axioms of American democracy is that we are a government of laws, not of men. But as Steve Chapman writes, the Democrats in the U.S. Senate may ignore the rule of law and indulge their own preferences by rejecting Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s lawful selection of Roland Burris to fill the senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama.
Make that Sen. Al Franken, probably, but - Barack Obama…
It looks like Lorne Michaels and "Saturday Night Live" alumni continue their march to take over the world.
Having already captured Hollywood and moving in on network TV, they’ve now targeted the United States Senate, which could seriously use some daytime laugh lines and satire.
After, what, nearly two months of counting and recounting, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board a short time ago said t
hat neophyte politician and profound Democrat comedian Al Franken had clobbered incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman by 215 votes out of a total of 2,424,637 acceptable votes.
As Huffington Post notes, that’s a victory margin of 0.0077, which henceforth shall be called a "Minnesota mandate."
Of course, that’s not the actual end. Coleman has lost in state court, claiming that some ballots were counted twice while other disputed ballots went uncounted.
And now his people are talking about going to federal court. A few more details here.
Although the new Congress doesn’t open until Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled Rules Committee ordered Coleman’s Washington offices closed and locked today while majority leaders vowed to seat Franken and Republicans suggested they might fight that.
So this change thing hasn’t seemed to catch on back there yet.
But wait. The announced election must still be certified by the Minnesota governor. His name is Tim Pawlenty. He’s a Republican. As the Ticket noted earlier today, there’s been some trouble certifying the appointment of a Democrat by the governor down Illinois way.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to block Roland Burris from taking Barack Obama’s vacant seat Tuesday, while the president-elect prepares for his Jan. 20 inauguration. So the Land o’ 10 Billion Lakes may become the second Land o’ One Senator for a while.
For a quick trip down memory lane with the now almost honorable Al, click on the "Read more" line below.
– Andrew Malcolm
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Photo credit: Associated Press
Barack Obama selects a ‘Leon Panetta’ to head the CIA - Obama,Barack
Unless ‘Leon Panetta’ is code name for George Smiley or someone else with secret qualifications in the crucial, clandestine world of intelligence, president-elect Barack Obama has made his first or second inexplicable pick of advisors.
Coming up on his Jan. 20 inauguration after weeks of pondering, Obama’s decided to appoint the ex-California congressman to run the Central Intelligence Agency.
The 61-year-old Panetta’s main apparent qualification for Obama is his resume from the Clinton administration, as White House chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget. And Panetta’s been loyally helping the ex-Illinois senator with the transition to power. So they’ve got to put him somewhere.
But immediately, someone as important as California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the incoming chair of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, raised serious doubts publicly. "My position has consistently been," she said, "that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."
Feinstein’s statement also touched on perhaps the real reason her nose is bent to the left today.
"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director." A real rookie transition mistake on the Hill that one could think Obama’s chief of staff, recently-resigned House member Rahm Emanuel, might have anticipated. Or even ex-House member Panetta himself, if he’s supposed to be such a savvy D.C. manager. Few more details here.
An aide to the outgoing Democratic intelligence committee chair, codenamed "Jay Rockefeller," also questioned the pick of a non-professional to run the agency at this troubled time for the agency and tumultuous time in the world. Rockefeller too read about the selection first in the N.Y. Times, which can annoy even Democrat congressmen.
As Jennifer Rubin thoughtfully notes, Panetta’s career is devoid of any intelligence experience, save serving on the Iraq Study Group, which got it wrong about the surge.
During the presidential campaign Obama had regular criticism of the U.S. intelligence community, including its at times rigorous interrogation methods. Which still doesn’t explain Panetta but might suggest Obama doesn’t trust intelligence insiders. Good luck with that kind of relationship in the bubble the next four years.
The secretive Agency has not been known as the most hospitable workplace for outsiders, although George H.W. Bush ran it successfully before moving over to the intelligence receiving end on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Agency even named its work campus for the 41st president, which should start each morning off just right for the arriving Panetta.
–"Andrew Malcolm"
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Photo credit: Associated Press
The week in Roland Burris - Barack Obama
AP Photo/Paul Beaty
Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s designate to fill Barack Obama’s Senate seat, reacts to a speech by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., at the New Covenant Baptist Church during a rally in Chicago Sunday.
Since Illinois left our universe for somewhere more surreal about a month ago, it’s gotten a little difficult to keep abreast of political twists and turns in the Land of Blago. If wondering whether we can expect a Sen. Roland Burris has left you hopelessly confused, you’re not alone. Here, then, is an update, so you too can speak expertly about the situation.
As of the end of last week, things were at a standoff. Burris was saying he’d be a senator, while the Democrats already in the Senate were saying he wouldn’t, and were warning that if Burris were to show up, they might enlist the sergeant-at-arms to keep him out of the chamber. That’s a scene nobody wants to see: Burris ends up looking illegitimate, and after getting compared (no matter how unfairly) to Bull Connor, do the Democrats really want to use a police officer to keep the Senate’s black population at zero?
The pseudo-senator-designate is getting on a plane to D.C. today, but he told the Chicago Tribune that he was “not going to create a scene in Washington.” So, for now, the Burris-gets-cuffed-in-the-rotunda scenario is looking unlikely, especially because the secretary of the Senate has now rejected Rod Blagojevich’s letter of appointment, which was missing a signature from Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, who last week refused to sign it. Burris is hoping the Illinois Supreme Court will order White to reconsider; without that signature, he can only sort of claim to have been appointed.
Sunday, Burris attended a send-off rally with ministers and local black leaders at New Covenant Church on Chicago’s South Side, where Rep. Bobby Rush called the Senate “the last bastion of plantation politics.” Meanwhile, Majority Leader Harry Reid seemed to soften his position, saying on “Meet the Press,” “I’m an old trial lawyer. There’s always room to negotiate.” Reid may feel more vulnerable to charges of racism than he originally might have been, as allegations have emerged that he pushed Blagojevich to appoint either Tammy Duckworth or Lisa Madigan over African-American options Jesse Jackson Jr., Danny Davis and Emil Jones.
It’s still unclear whether Reid was deliberately opening the door to Burris or not. His deputy, Illinois’ Dick Durbin, said yesterday that there are no plans to seat Burris provisionally. However, Democratic leaders do plan to meet with him on Wednesday.
If the Senate does try to keep Burris out, we can expect a lawsuit, Burris lawyer Timothy Wright says. And, though there’s precedent (Powell v. McCormack) for forcing Congress to seat a duly elected member with dubious ethics, the meaning of that case for this situation is debated.
Writing at Slate, professors Akhil Reed Amar and Josh Chafetz say that a simple majority in the Senate has the power to reject Burris. Because the Constitution makes the Senate “the Judge of the Elections, Returns, and Qualifications of its own members,” appointments fall under its jurisdiction just as much as elections. The spirit of Powell, write Amar and Chafetz, is that the people’s unambiguous choice ought to be respected, but if no such will has been expressed, the Senate gets to exercise its authority; as with impeachment, senators don’t need a criminal conviction to judge someone unsuitable for office.
But, law professor Eugene Volokh writes on his blog, Powell makes clear that the judgment of suitability for office is an exclusively objective question. The Senate, he writes, has the power to reject someone who has been legally compromised, is not a citizen, or is not old enough. “But if the argument is simply that Blagojevich is generally a criminal, and not that the appointment of Burris was done criminally, I don’t see how that can fit within the Senate’s power.”
We’ll be keeping an eye on developments, naturally, and doing our best to discern and relay what they mean.
Reid’s Thin Reed Bends - Barack Obama
In an interview with NBC’s David Gregory on Meet the Press yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid insisted "there’s clearly legal authority for us to do whatever we want to" when Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blogojevich’s choice to replace Barack Obama, tries to claim his seat. At the same time, Reid left room for a deal that would allow Burris to serve. Here is his rationale for resisting the appointment:
Blagojevich obviously is a corrupt individual. I think that’s pretty clear. And the reason that he’s done what he’s done is to divert attention from the arrest that was just made of him and the indictment which will be coming in a few days, according to the U.S. attorney in Illinois. That’s why President-elect Obama agreed with us that Mr. Burris is tainted. Not as a result of anything that he’s done wrong. There’s—I don’t know a thing wrong with Mr. Burris.
Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution says, "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members." The Supreme Court has ruled that in this context "qualifications" are the criteria laid out by the Constitution itself—e.g., that a senator be at least 30 years old and a U.S. citizen for at least nine years. In any event, Reid concedes there’s nothing wrong with Burris’ personal qualifications; according to Reid, it’s Burris’ appointment by a governor accused of corruption that’s problematic. Reid is arguing that the Senate has a right to judge the legitimacy of Burris’ appointment, just as it would have the right to judge the legitimacy of another senator’s election. Yet if Burris himself is clean, as Gregory pointed out, "there’s nothing suggesting that the appointment was at all illegal" (that it was the result of a bribe, for example).
Perhaps recognizing that his position is legally untenable, Reid declined to say that he would press it in court and suggested that Burris might be allowed to serve after all:
Gregory: But there sounds to me like there may be some room here to negotiate and actually seat Burris?
Reid: Hey, listen, David, I’m an old trial lawyer. There’s always room to negotiate.
Gregory: All right, so you’re not saying no completely that he won’t serve?
Reid: That’s right.
Last week I said the rule of law demands that Burris be permitted to take his seat. In his column today, Steve Chapman, no fan of Burris or Blagojevich, fleshes out that argument.
Reid’s Thin Reed Bends - Dem, Ill
In an interview with NBC’s David Gregory on Meet the Press yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid insisted "there’s clearly legal authority for us to do whatever we want to" when Roland Burris, Illinois Gov. Rod Blogojevich’s choice to replace Barack Obama, tries to claim his seat. At the same time, Reid left room for a deal that would allow Burris to serve. Here is his rationale for resisting the appointment:
Blagojevich obviously is a corrupt individual. I think that’s pretty clear. And the reason that he’s done what he’s done is to divert attention from the arrest that was just made of him and the indictment which will be coming in a few days, according to the U.S. attorney in Illinois. That’s why President-elect Obama agreed with us that Mr. Burris is tainted. Not as a result of anything that he’s done wrong. There’s—I don’t know a thing wrong with Mr. Burris.
Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution says, "Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members." The Supreme Court has ruled that in this context "qualifications" are the criteria laid out by the Constitution itself—e.g., that a senator be at least 30 years old and a U.S. citizen for at least nine years. In any event, Reid concedes there’s nothing wrong with Burris’ personal qualifications; according to Reid, it’s Burris’ appointment by a governor accused of corruption that’s problematic. Reid is arguing that the Senate has a right to judge the legitimacy of Burris’ appointment, just as it would have the right to judge the legitimacy of another senator’s election. Yet if Burris himself is clean, as Gregory pointed out, "there’s nothing suggesting that the appointment was at all illegal" (that it was the result of a bribe, for example).
Perhaps recognizing that his position is legally untenable, Reid declined to say that he would press it in court and suggested that Burris might be allowed to serve after all:
Gregory: But there sounds to me like there may be some room here to negotiate and actually seat Burris?
Reid: Hey, listen, David, I’m an old trial lawyer. There’s always room to negotiate.
Gregory: All right, so you’re not saying no completely that he won’t serve?
Reid: That’s right.
Last week I said the rule of law demands that Burris be permitted to take his seat. In his column today, Steve Chapman, no fan of Burris or Blagojevich, fleshes out that argument.
Senate Republicans should vote to seat Ronald Burris - Barack Obama
Senate Republicans should vote to seat Ronald Burris Much as been made the last few weeks about the selection of former Attorney general Roland Burris to take Barack Obama’s seat in the Illinois Senate. Governor Rod Blagojevich sent the political world reeling by making the selection, while under investigation for “selling” the seat. Democrats who usually don’t get embarrassed over corruption have threatened not to seat him. There has been a lot of discussion. Is Burris easier to beat in 2010? Is there gain in keeping the scandal alive? The longer with another liberal Senator the better. On the Democratic
MSNBC’s Brewer suggested there is “a cloud over Franken” because lawsuit or filibuster could impede efforts to seat him in Senate - Dem, Ill
During the January 5 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Contessa Brewersuggested that there is “a cloud over” Democrat Al Franken — who reportedly leadsincumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R) by 225 votes upon completion of the MinnesotaSenate recount — because a potential legal challenge by Coleman or filibuster byNational Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) chairman Sen. John Cornyn (TX)could impede efforts to seat Franken in the Senate. Additionally, Brewer saidthat despite a potential legal challenge or filibuster, Sen. Chuck Schumer(D-NY) is “saying we should get him [Franken] in right away.” Butin purporting to represent Schumer’s January 4 remarks, Brewerdid not mention that Schumer reportedly said “there are still possiblelegal issues that will run their course.” Schumer concluded: “Withthe Senate set to begin meeting on Tuesday to address the important issuesfacing the nation, it is crucial that Minnesota’sseat not remain empty, and I hope this process will resolve itself as soon aspossible.”
Brewer did not explain how apotential legal challenge by Coleman or a Senate filibuster by Cornynconstitutes “a cloud over Franken.” As Media Matters for America has documented,numerous media figures have similarly warned that a “cloud” hangsover President-elect Barack Obama because of the scandal involving IllinoisGov. Rod Blagojevich (D) or asserted that the scandal threatens to cast a”cloud” over Obama’s presidency, despite the absenceof any actual allegations of wrongdoing by Obama or his staff.
As MediaMatters noted, in a January 4 post on ABC News’The Note, senior congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl uncritically quotedCornyn’s baseless assertion that Schumer “believes Al Franken should beseated without an election certificate signed by both the Secretary of Stateand Governor, as Minnesotalaw requires.”
From Schumer’s statement, asposted on the TPM Election Central blog on January 4:
Withthe Minnesotarecount complete, it is now clear that Al Franken won the election. TheCanvassing Board will meet tomorrow to wrap up its work and certify him thewinner, and while there are still possible legal issues that will run theircourse, there is no longer any doubt who will be the next Senator from Minnesota. Even if allthe ballots Coleman claims were double counted or erroneously added wereresolved in his favor, he still wouldn’t have enough votes to win. With theSenate set to begin meeting on Tuesday to address the important issues facingthe nation, it is crucial that Minnesota’s seat not remain empty, and I hopethis process will resolve itself as soon as possible.
From the 9 a.m. ET hour of theJanuary 5 edition of MSNBC Live:
BREWER:Senator [Harry] Reid [D-NV] says, look, we can — we pick who sits in theSenate. The House picks who sits in the House. Is that true?
NATEPERSILY (Columbia Law School professor): Well, the Supreme Court actually hasissued a decision right on point, and it said that, you know, thequalifications in the Constitution as to age, citizenship, and residency aregrounds for disqualifying someone, but you can’t just decide who can sitthere. So if the Democrats wanted to deny seats to all the Republicans, theycan’t do that.
Now,there might be special circumstances here, because Blagojevich and this appointmentare sort of under a cloud of suspicion of impropriety. And so, some people aresaying, well, you know, they can deny a seat to [Roland] Burris becauseit’s almost as if there’s sort a bribery angle to this, but I thinkthat’s a pretty hard road for them to hoe.
BREWER:And — and don’t they have more control over who sits in the Senate,like, once the senator is actually there, seated in the Senate? Can they doanything about a person who’s just incoming and hasn’t necessarilydone anything wrong?
PERSILY:Well, it’s — what they’re — people are saying is that they candeny him a seat because it’s almost as if this is like a — say a briberytype of case, right? So that there is this cloud that’s hanging over theappointment, so therefore that it’s almost as if someone were buying anelection.
BREWER:Interesting that you bring up this cloud hanging over the appointment, becausewe’re looking at Minnesota,where, today, they’re considering whether to name Al Franken as thewinner. It appears that he’s ahead in the recount. That being said,you’ve got Norm Coleman who’s challenging it, perhaps legally. Wemay see a legal challenge. John Cornyn of Texas says he’s going to filibuster AlFranken being named to that seat. So isn’t there a cloud over Franken,and yet you have Schumer saying we should get him in right away?
PERSILY:Well, that’s right. What the Constitution says is that each house –either the House of Representatives or the Senate — is the judge of thequalifications, returns, and elections of their members. And there have beeninstances where they’ve said, you know, there’s somethingsuspicious in a certain election, therefore we’re not going to seat them.That requires a majority vote of the Senate, and so, we’ll see if theycan prevent a majority vote from happening.