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Chicago Attorneys Still Fighting Burris Appointment
Produced by Rob Wildeboer on Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Illinois U.S. Senator Roland Burris

The appeals court in Chicago will hear arguments today on why there should still be an election to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

Roland Burris has Obama's old seat but that could change if Marty Oberman has his way. He's suing the Governor because Pat Quinn hasn't called for a special election. Oberman says the 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires Quinn to call a special election despite an Illinois state law that allows the governor to appoint people to the Senate.

OBERMAN: There's no more important right in a democracy than the right to vote for the people who are making decisions for you. And in Illinois one of our Senate votes is sitting there not having been elected, but having been appointed.

Oberman says an appointment to fill a vacancy on a short-term basis is fine, but Burris' two-year term seems unreasonable, and unconstitutional. Oberman lost that argument in a lower court and the Illinois Attorney General's Office which is defending the governor in the case says the lower court's ruling should stand because the court made no factual or legal errors.

RestoreFederalism // Thursday, September 17, 2009 @ 1:33 PM

There is another option to consider: If we were to repeal the 17th Amendment, we would limit the size and scope of the national government AND speed up the process by which Senators are sent to represent Illinois. http://www.restorefederalism.org