Council: Burris 'untainted the process'
Two days before taking his seat in the “millionaire’s club” they call the U.S. Senate, Roland Burris got a royal send-off from the City Council Tuesday and praise for having so much integrity, he “untainted the process.”
A resolution originally crafted to pressure Senate President Harry Reid and Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) to seat Burris turned into a love-fest for the man appointed by disgraced Gov. Blagojevich.
“We all know we got issues with the person [who] appointed him and that the process had been tainted. But when he chose Roland Burris, he untainted the process. He gave integrity back to the process,” said Ald. Anthony Beale (9th).
Ald. Freddrenna Lyle (6th) said the two-week-long political circus that saw Burris turned away from the U.S. Senate in the rain, creating comic fodder for “Saturday Night Live,” should never have happened.
“The governor had that power and he exercised it…No matter how much you may hate and revile a person, you cannot change the law based on whether you like the person using the law,” Lyle said.
Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), the governor’s estranged father-in-law, praised Burris for standing his ground amid pressure to refuse the appointment.
Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 — and subsequently impeached — for a laundry list of pay-to-pay offenses that include trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.
“You stood up against an onslaught that, a lot of our knees would have buckled. And you did it with dignity…and the the law on your side,” Mell said.
“You are known throughout the world. You could go [to] Kabul, Afghanistan and they will know Roland Burris. This is an opportunity unparalled for you.”
For more than 40 minutes, Burris sat beaming in the V.I.P. box in the City Council chambers. Afterwards, he sounded very much like a man who intends to run for the seat he now holds in 2010.
Burris said he was “moved” and rendered “speechless” by the aldermanic outpouring.
Asked how he felt about being featured on “Saturday Night Live,” he said, “Wasn’t that great? My daughter caught it and she called us. We weren’t on that station. I got the tail end of it. I’ve been trying to get the whole [tape]. What was the guy’s name who was playing me?”