When Senator Mark Kirk (And I will say Senator and not Senator-elect because he is the legitimate Senator now.) was elected to Obama’s old seat on November 2nd, it was a special election to finish an incomplete term. Therefore he is to represent Illinois immediately in the pending lame duck session of Congress.
But Illinois Democrats are hamstringing that process. The state says they cannot seat him until after Thanksgiving due to paperwork. Yeah, riiiiight. And that even though Kirk won by more the 70,000 votes and his opponent has graciously conceded.
Since in the current lame duck Senate, Kirk could be a possible 41st vote to prevent cloture and stop Democrat legislation, this delay is neither trivial nor symbolic. It echoes Massachusetts Demorats’ delaying the seating of Scott Brown in order to assist the passage of Obamacare.
Mayrant takes the words out of my mouth. This is a great example of what I hate about Democrats.
Senate Republicans should not let Democrats get away with this. They should shut down the Senate for all but uncontroversial matters until Kirk is seated.
3 comments:
Do we expect anything less of FIBs?
I emailed Sen. Durbin. I'm sure that'll help...I'll be holding my breath on that one...not.
Actually, one needs to blame a United States Federal Judge for this situation. According to his ruling establishing the special election, the State of Illinois must speed up its process of certifying the election results in order for the state to be in compliance with the 17th admendment to the constitution. In other words, without the intervention of the Feds, the usual steps of certifying the tally of votes in Illinois would take even longer that it is going to be in this one instance. There are no behind the scenes political foot-dragging on this. The seating of Mr. Kirk will be sooner than if the state's ordinary legal procedures and deadlines were to be followed.
David
Post a Comment