Democrats Pay Price for Burris Lack of Truth About Blagojevich Contacts

By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

The whole truth and nothing but the truth. Apparently, that's not quite what Roland Burris told his fellow Democrats about his contacts with representatives of then Gov. Rod Blagojevich about the Senate seat to which Blagojevich appointed him on December 30.

The Chicago Tribune has a careful but damning editorial of Burris's evolving accounts of his meetings. Turns out, according to a February affidavit, that he had contact with six of them, not with just one, as he had stated in January when, after some embarrassment, he was seated. Republican legislators in Illinois want Burris questioned further. This looks like a continuing and unwanted problem for Senate Democratic leaders. And, as Jennifer Rubin points out, Illinois Democrats could have avoided all this if they had passed a law requiring the vacant seat to be filled by election—as Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin argued in the immediate aftermath of Blagojevich's arrest. But Democrats didn't want to give Republicans a chance to win the seat. Now they are paying a price.

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