Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Related: Dems May Not Be Able To Block Blago Pick

Salena Zito’s 44th Estate:

llinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich named former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to a replacement to fill President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat today, even as Senate Democrats assured the governor they will block the appointment.

Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell Obama’s seat which is why he is facing impeachment and federal charges.

U.S. Senate Democrats released a statement earlier this afternoon asking Blagojevich not to follow through, saying they would not seat the candidate that he names.

They are part of large chorus of Democrats and elected officials that have been urging Blagojevich to step down since his arrest in the beginning of the month.

Burris became the first black elected to statewide office when he served as Illinois state comptroller, he also served as the Illinois state attorney general from 1991 to 1995.

Burris stood smiling broadly beside Blagojevich at the 3:00 p.m. press conference that announced his appointment.

The AP is reporting that Rep. Congressman Bobby Rush of Illinois is daring senate democrats to block the only black serving in the U.S. senate: “This is a matter of national importance. There are no African Americans in the Senate, and I don’t think that anyone, any U.S. senator who’s sitting in the Senate right now, wanna go on record to DENY one African American from being seated in the U.S. Senate. I don’t think they want to go on record doing that”

University of Virginia political scientest scientist Larry Sabato calls Blagojevich’s pick a “Catch-22, Hobbesian choice, middle-finger salute to his party.”

“Gov. Blagojevich has put the Democrats between a rock and a hard place. Can they turn down a very respectable, experienced, and apparently clean nominee who would be the only African-American in the Senate–with blacks an essential Democratic constituency group? Can they accept the appointee of a corrupt governor after they have said they wouldn’t, thereby buying a piece of his rancid cake? Maybe a technicality can solve the problem for them. The Illinois Secretary of State says he won’t sign and forward the nomination to the Senate. Or maybe not.”