Burris Determined to Take His Senate Seat Tuesday

[depakid]

Source: NY Times

Barack Obama's appointed successor declared Tuesday he's qualified to take a seat in the Senate and said he'll go to Capitol Hill to do just that.

''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,'' Roland Burris said in a nationally broadcast interview just hours before the Senate convenes with the start of the 111th Congress. 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.

''As I read the U.S. Constitution,'' he said on CBS's ''The Early Show,'' it says the ''governor shall fill a vacancy, and as a former attorney general of my state, I have no knowledge of where a secretary of state has veto power over a governor carrying out his constitutional duties.''

Burris also maintained 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.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/06/washington/A...