Obviously yesterday’s nasty scene left a bad taste in the mouths of Senate Democratic leaders. While they aren’t going to immediately seat Burris, as was reported this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did tell reporters they’ll consider seating the former Illinois attorney general depending on the outcome of Burris’ testimony before the Illinois legislature’s impeachment panel and the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision. Burris has petitioned the court to force Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White to certify Blagojevich’s appointment. Reid said the matter would still have to be referred to the Rules Committee but indicated that he’d like to see a vote “sooner rather than later” on the issue, which could mean that Burris gets seated provisionally pending the committee’s review. Reid also bent over backwards to praise Burris.
Excerpts of Reid’s remarks:
We just completed about a 45-minute meeting with Roland Burris. For me, who had never met the man, it was very enlightening. Senator Durbin has known him all of his political life, but I was very interested in his political career. He went through that line by line; it was extremely interesting.
He obviously is a very engaging, extremely nice man. He presents himself very well. He’s very proud of his family. He’s got two Ph.D.s and two law degrees, and he talked about how proud he was (inaudible) having those degrees.
[…]
Roland Burris, one of the first things he said to us, hey, this is nothing that’s racial, I understand that. So a lot of people tried to make this a racial issue, but Roland Burris has not and will not.
We believe that what he’s going to do tomorrow afternoon is very important. We believe that court decision is very important before we can move to the next step.