Burris To SCOTUS: Let Me Serve

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Sep 10, 2010 7:30PM

Painting by the incomparable Lauri Apple

And here we thought everything was all wrapped up in a nice, neat little package for that chaotic vote for U.S. Senate in this November's general election. To review: a high court ruled that Sen. Burris should never have been appointed in the first place but rather that position - vacated by Barack Obama when he won the 2008 Presidential election - should have been filled by special election. So that's what we'll have ... two years late. You'll vote twice for Senator on November 2: once for a temporary senator who will serve until the new Congress is sworn in in January and once for, well, the permanent senator. So it's very likely that Mark Kirk or Alexi Giannoulias will become senator on November 3. Unless something crazy happens and they split the vote. Point is, poor ol' Roland was left off the ballot altogether meaning he'd be done as senator come Election Day. But Roland - who chose not to run - is none too pleased about this and is now appealing to the Supreme Court to let him serve those remaining weeks between Election Day and the new Congress.

U.S. District Judge John Grady “stepped in and did something I think was impermissable,” [Burris' attorney Tim] Wright said. “No one contemplated the judge would step in and set up the election.”

“Voters very well might have different preferences for what is desirable in a person who will fill the remaining 62 days of the current Senate term and the person who will fill the subsequent six-year term,” Burris’ petition argues.

And voters very well might have preferred to have had the option to pick their own damn senator in the first place two years ago instead of letting the on-his-way-to-being-impeached-and-becoming-a-convicted-felon governor Rod Blagojevich appoint The Lord's Senator™. But that's probably just splitting hairs.