Tag: Roland Burris

We told you about lousy & lousier… here comes the lousiest:

Burris campaign officials on Thursday released a report showing the new senator raised only $845 from January through March and had $111,032 in debts from defending himself in ongoing ethics and perjury probes and travel.

That’s a pretty remarkable haul (yes, that’s not even nine Benjamins), even for someone as scandal-tainted as Roland Burris. One has to almost try in order to avoid raising at least some money as a sitting Senator. (What, you mean to tell me that he couldn’t have squeezed out a couple of grand out of Bobby Rush’s campaign committee?)

Burris has his first real fundraiser scheduled for this weekend, but this kind of pathetic first quarter haul may give us a window to his 2010 intentions. If he actually does intend to give 2010 a crack, he’ll be hard-pressed to keep up with state Treasurer Alex Giannoulias, who outraised Burris by over a 1000-to-1 margin in the first quarter.

(Hat-tip to conspiracy for the catch)

• NY-20 (pdf): The latest update from the state BoE this morning shows Scott Murphy’s lead down to 25, as the absentee count proceeds (and a few readjustments are made to recanvass numbers). We’re still waiting on any absentee numbers from Saratoga County (Tedisco’s base) and most from Washington and Warren Counties (Murphy’s base).

Also, there’s been some research into what happens in NY-20 ends in a true tie (and no, apparently “Thunderdome” is not involved after all). Under NY law, coin tosses are not allowed in state or federal races, so the governor has the choice of either holding another special election for which the candidates will need to be re-nominated (allowing Libertarian Eric Sundwall another shot at the ballot), or else postponing the whole matter until the general election in Nov. 2009.

• IL-Sen: Roland Burris is getting slammed even by his one-time supporters now. Rep. Danny Davis told Chicago Public Radio that Burris needs to “hurry up” and announce whether or not he’s running for re-election in 2010. Davis’s sudden hurry is personally motivated, though, as Davis also stated publicly for the first time that he’s considering running for that senate seat himself. (It seems like he wouldn’t want to do it with Burris in the primary, though, as that would split the African-American vote.)

• OH-Sen: Ex-Rep. Rob Portman may not have much name recognition or charisma, but he does have one advantage: lots of money. Today he reported raising $1.7 million in Q1, and is sitting on $3.1 million total. Lee Fisher, by contrast, announced last week that he raised $1.1 million, while Jennifer Brunner hasn’t reported yet.

• NY-Sen: Here are some tea leaves that Rep. Carolyn McCarthy isn’t going to be running against Kirsten Gillibrand in the senate primary: she raised $145,000 in the first quarter (for House re-election, but that could be transferred if she switched to the senate race), with $262,000 CoH. (Also-rumored challengers Reps. Steve Israel and Carolyn Maloney have much bigger stashes; they haven’t reported for Q1, but have $1.7 million and $1.1 million CoH, respectively.)

• DE-Sen: Along the same lines, it looks like Mike Castle isn’t gearing up his fundraising machine toward a run for the open senate seat in Delaware in 2010. (On the other hand, he’s raised enough that retirement doesn’t seem in the offing.) Politico catches that he raised only $73,000 in Q1, with $841,000 CoH.

• FL-Sen: Rep. Kendrick Meek got another big “get” in his so-far-successful quest to nail down all the building blocks to cornering the Democratic nomination. He got the endorsement of the national AFSCME today, one of the nation’s largest unions.

• MN-Sen: Digging by Senate Guru and Down with Tyranny reveals that one of the Minnesota Supreme Court justices who’ll be hearing Norm Coleman’s whinings is Christopher Dietzen, who has donated thousands to Republican candidates, most significantly to Norm Coleman himself, creating a rather clear basis for recusal.

• AL-Gov: Former “Ten Commandments” judge Roy Moore, who lost the 2006 gubernatorial primary to Bob Riley, is looking for another try, now that it’s an open seat. With a fractured-looking GOP field, it’s possible Moore could sneak through the primary this time, which, given his polarizing nature, might actually give the Dem a small advantage in the general.

• NYC-Mayor: NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg solved the term limits problem, but he had one more problem to overcome: getting a ballot line from some party. To solve that dilemma, he’s returned to his shallow Republican roots, remaining a registered independent but picking up the GOP ballot line by getting the endorsement of three of the boroughs’ GOP chairs. In a display of ‘post-partisanship’ at its finest, he’s reportedly also trying to secure the ballot line of the left-leaning Working Families Party.

• OH-17: In a move guaranteed to provoke a huge collective sigh of relief, Ohio senate minority leader Capri Cafaro said that she won’t run for the open seat left behind by Rep. Tim Ryan, assuming he runs for Ohio Lt. Gov. in 2010. “I don’t know if I can get as much accomplished on the federal level,” she says.

• PA-04: Republicans seem to be coalescing around state representative (and minority whip) Mike Turzai as a challenger to Rep. Jason Altmire in this slowly-reddening district in Pittsburgh’s suburbs. Turzai lost the 1998 election in the 4th to Ron Klink by a fairly wide margin. The 4th’s most prominent GOPer, Lynn Swann, has already declined.

• AR-01: A likely GOP candidate has already surfaced to run against Marion Berry (no, not the DC mayor) in this rural district that had one of the most alarming rightward shifts over the decade. In the ‘can’t make this stuff up’ department, businessman Eric Crawford already boasts wide name recognition from doing the radio farm report.

• IL-11: Real estate investor and big-money GOP donor Henry Meers Jr. has filed to take on freshman Rep. Debbie Halvorson in the 11th. However, some in the local GOP instead favor Iraq War vet and former McLean County board member Adam Kinzinger. (Kinzinger is from the rural part of the district, while Meers and Halvorson hail from Will County in the Chicago suburbs.)

• NRCC: The NRCC is going on the offense against 43 different House dems for “rubber stamping” Nancy Pelosi’s “San Francisco-style budget” (and its socialistic promise of Rice-a-Roni in every pot). Oddly, they’re singling out OH-18’s Zack Space (certainly not one of our most vulnerable members) with a TV spot. Nine other Dems get radio spots, while robocalls target the rest (including other entrenched members like Charlie Melancon and Chet Edwards).

• Polltopia: Our friends at Public Policy Polling are once again letting readers decide which Senate race they’ll poll next. The choices this time: Colorado, Connecticut, and Illinois. Go get your democracy on, and tell us which state you voted for (and why) in the comments. (J)

Time for the daily ganja break…

• NY-20: Scott Murphy snagged the Independence Party line for the March 31 special election – a good get, even though it didn’t help Sandy Treadwell much last fall. Meanwhile, both Tedisco and the NRCC are up on the air with negative radio and TV ads. The DCCC also hits back with its first ad, attacking Tedisco for stimulus-related waffling while defending Murhpy against back taxes charges.

• IL-Sen: Oh god – Roland Burris has rolled out a campaign website, complete with “Donate” link. Also, it should come as no surprise, but state treasurer (and Friend of Barack) Alexi Giannoulias made his interest official today, launching his exploratory committee. Meanwhile, Rep. Jan Schakowsky says she’ll jump in if there’s a special election, though she sounds leery about giving up her seat for a 2010 run.

• DC Voting Rights: Steny Hoyer has promised a House vote this week on the DC Voting Rights Act. The bill should pass the House easily, given that a prior version sailed through in 2007. The real issue will be whether the conference committee settles on an at-large or traditional district for Utah. (D)

• UT-Sen: Damn, Ken Jennings won’t run. Says Jennings: “I’ve decided to bow out of the election before even announcing, in order to spend more time with my family. (And when I say “with my family,” I mean, “screwing around on the Internet.”)” At least that’s an excuse we can all understand and accept. (D)

• Polltopia: Public Policy Polling once again is letting readers decide which Senate race they’ll poll next. The choices: Connecticut, Delaware, and Kentucky. (J)

• CA-Gov: Looks like John Garamendi, Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown, and Antonio Villaraigosa are all dead serious about running for governor in 2010; they all jointly appeared before the San Fernando Valley Democrats this weekend.

• OR-Gov: As DeFazio, Kitzhaber, Bradbury, et al. try to figure out who’s running, a dark horse may be sneaking past them: Portland City Councilor Randy Leonard, who may be able to count on substantial backing from organized labor.

Illinois governor Pat Quinn is pushing the idea of a special election to fill in the Illinois senate seat… the one that Roland Burris is currently occupying and doesn’t seem to be moving to relinquish. This wouldn’t be a recall election (recall power doesn’t exist at the federal level), but rather an end-run that would apparently clarify that Burris’s appointment lasts until any next election (not just the next federal election), and then set an election date much sooner than 2010. Sounds a little legally questionable to me, but AG Lisa Madigan seems to think it’s copacetic:

Quinn, appearing on “The Steve Cochran Show” on WGN-AM (720), said he spoke to the top two Democrats in the General Assembly today about the possibility of moving ahead with the legislation, which would take advantage of a clause contained in the U.S. Constitution’s 17th Amendment.

Quinn’s actions follow a legal opinion issued last night by Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan who said she believed the state could enact a special-election law that would effectively force Burris from office. Under the Constitution, a governor’s appointments to fill Senate vacancies should be considered temporary until an election is held, she said.

Even if it’s legal, though, the question of the price tag may prevent it from going through. Estimates of up to $50 million to hold a special election may throw cold water on the idea.

Regardless of whether there’s a special election soon or a long march till 2010, one more interested Democratic contender for the Senate has popped out of the woodwork today: William Daley. He plans to make his announcement in mid-April. Daley is the former Clinton-era Commerce Secretary, and perhaps more significantly, brother to Chicago mayor Richard Daley. Hmmm, I wonder which candidate the Daley machine will get behind?

After weeks of dribs and drabs of revelations that his stumbling upon the Illinois senate seat wasn’t so innocuous after all, the question was starting to become whether Roland Burris would survive the end of the month, not whether he’d be able to win re-election. Today, Burris will announce that he’s splitting the difference: he won’t resign, but he won’t run for re-election either.

This may not change the 2010 calculus that much; Jan Schakowsky and Alexi Giannoulis were probably going to run in the Democratic primary whether or not Burris was there; the main question was whether Burris could sneak through the primary based on African-American support and a split liberal vote. At any rate, it gives Burris a graceful (or at least less graceless) way to ride off into the sunset and carve another line on his mausoleum.

Also, Pat Quinn, who took over as governor in the wake of Rod Blagojevich and who was one of the first to call for Burris to resign, announced that he will be running for re-election in 2010.

“I have no reason not to run,” Quinn told me when I asked him about the 2010 election. “I think I am doing a good job today. I anticipate I will continue to do that. Stabilizing the ship of Illinois is vitally necessary. I think even in the first three-and-a-half weeks we’ve done a decent job of turning a page in an unhappy chapter in the state’s history.”

By getting out in front of the Blago blowback, Quinn seems to have stabilized his situation and there doesn’t seem to be any discussion of primary competition for him (yet).

UPDATE by Jimmy Hell: Now Camp Burris is denying everything, saying that no 2010 decisions have been made.

Harry Reid: Leave, legislator, you don’t belong in this Chamber!

Roland Burris: It was not by MY ego that I was once again given government office!  I was appointed here by ROD BLAGOJEVICH, who wished to pay ME tribute!

Reid: Tribute?  He destroys politicians’ careers, and makes them his pawns!

Burris: Perhaps the same could be said of all scandal-plagued politicians.

Reid: Your words are as empty as your ethics!  The people of Illinois ill need a Senator such as you!

Burris: What is a Senate seat?!  A miserable little pile of campaign efforts!  But enough talk…have at you!

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/26-28, likely voters):

Roland Burris (D-inc): 37

Mark Kirk (R): 30

Roland Burris (D-inc): 38

Peter Roskam (R): 25

Jan Schakowsky (D): 36

Mark Kirk (R): 30

Jan Schakowsky (D): 37

Peter Roskam (R): 25

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 38

Mark Kirk (R): 30

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 38

Peter Roskam (R): 25

(MoE: ±4%)

Roland Burris (D-inc): 26

Jan Schakowsky (D): 12

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 11

Undecided: 51

Mark Kirk (R): 27

Peter Roskam (R): 17

Undecided: 56

(MoE: ±5%)

This poll ought to be a palliative for those people worried that the blowback from Rod Blagojevich’s attempt to sell the Illinois Senate seat (and his subsequent impeachment), and Roland Burris’s enthusiasm to occupy said tainted seat, mean that the Republicans are in prime position to take over the seat in 2010. There are a lot of undecideds, obviously, but even up against the Illinois GOP’s top tier (Reps. Mark Kirk and Peter Roskam), Burris looks to be in the driver’s seat. Considering the terrible optics of accepting Blago’s appointment, Burris’s favorability isn’t that bad; his favorable/unfavorable is 35/35.

In the general, though, Burris fares really no better or worse than any of the other Democrats interested in mounting a primary challenge to him in 2010. Rep. Jan Schakowsky and state treasurer Alexi Giannoulias put up very similar numbers, indicating that Illinoisians are retaining their Dem leanings and are capable of separating Blagojevich’s spate of increasingly appalling actions from the Democratic brand in general. Tellingly, both Kirk and Roskam have negative favorability (37/41 for Kirk and 19/23 for the little-known Roskam), suggesting that voters’ dislike for them may have a lot to do with the “R” after their names.

The Democratic primary also sees the voters in a wait-and-see mode. Burris, on the strength of a month’s worth of media saturation, has an edge. But at only 26%, it can’t be seen as a clear path to victory at this point, especially with Schakowsky probably being labor’s and EMILY’s List’s candidate, and Giannoulias bringing his own powerful connections with him.

This looks like a pretty serious backtrack for Handsome Harry:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Sunday maintained that the appointment of Illinois Democrat Roland Burris to the Senate seat left vacant by the election of President-elect Barack Obama is under a cloud of suspicion, but the Nevada Democrat hinted the door may be open for discussion.

“I’m a trial lawyer. There’s always room to negotiate,” Reid said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I’m a trial lawyer” – oy vey. Anyway… this is quite an about-face from last Tuesday, when Senate Dems said no way, no how to Roland Burris:

Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus.

I think this whole episode is going to wind up being pretty embarrassing for Harry Reid, and a lot of the wounds are gonna be self-inflicted.

Well, he isn’t quite as obscure as Tim Ted Kaufman, but Blagojevich has named his pick for the vacant Illinois senate seat and it’s someone who wasn’t on anybody’s watch list: former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. Burris is the first African-American to win statewide office in Illinois, elected comptroller in 1978. He’s failed to win the primary in three separate gubernatorial runs, including in 2002 against Blagojevich.

Burris is 71. This leads to the question: is he running for re-election in 2010? That’s not immediately clear, but Burris stated earlier that whoever gets the appointment should be able to win re-election. Burris sold himself to Blagojevich when the position came open, and unlike most anyone else, continued to sell himself harder after Blago got arrested.

Shortly after Obama’s Nov. 4 victory, Burris made known his interest in an appointment to the Senate but was never seriously considered, according to Blagojevich insiders. But in the days following Blagojevich’s arrest, and despite questions over the taint of a Senate appointment, Burris stepped up his efforts to win the governor’s support.

What’s strange here is that Blagojevich’s own defense attorney said that no appointment would be forthcoming, and of course earlier Harry Reid said that no Blagojevich appointment would be seated by the Senate… so it’s unclear what exactly Blagojevich is thinking (although that seems like it has frequently been the case lately). Burris apparently has not been connected to any of the investigations of Blagojevich, but it seems highly iffy as to whether or not he ever actually becomes a senator, with Reid’s threat, and the Illinois legislature still considering impeachment procedures against Blagojevich. (Discussion is already underway in safi‘s diary.)

UPDATE (James L.): Looks like Senate Dems are standing firm:

It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety. We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris’s ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus.

As is Illinois’ Secretary of State:

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White says he’ll reject any paperwork that Gov. Rod Blagojevich files to name a new U.S. senator.

The secretary of state keeps state records and certifies official actions.

But White says he won’t certify anything Blagojevich does to fill the Senate seat once held by President-elect Barack Obama.

(Hat-tip: SusanG)

Later Update: Did you catch the Blago/Burris press conference? Reportedly, it was nothing less than surreal.