Illinois or Washington ?
Senator is a federal office and, as such, the salary and associated costs are paid by the federal taxpayer.
–Cliffy
He has no salary until he is seated. The new appointee is unlikely to be seated. If he had any brains, he would decline the appointment and hope that the Lieutenant appoints him. The seat is up in 2010 in any case.
I think the new appointee is almost certain to be seated. The Senate has the power to determine the qualifications of its members, but the guy seems clearly qualified (over the age limit, appointed by the legal process under Illinois law, as Blago is still the governor). Reid has said he won’t be part of the Democratic caucus, but I don’t believe the Senate has the power just to say they don’t like someone legally designated as a senator, so he has to go home.
–Cliffy
According to my limited reading of Powell v. McCormack, they can do exactly that, as long as they wait until he’s been sworn in. However, I don’t think they will. Scandal or not, he has been duly appointed in perfect accordance with the laws of the State of Illinois, and the IL legislature has made no effort to change them to block such a move by Blags.
They can say that he wasn’t legally designated, because the process was sullied by bribery. Similar cases have arisen before, when legislative elections of Senators were tainted by bribery, or when popular elections have been marred by fraud or intimidation.
This isn’t comparable to Powell v. MacCormack, in which the House raised objections only to Powell himself, rather than to the circumstances of his election.
@OP: The Federal government pays the Senators Salary, much to my discontent.
This was one of the changes in moving from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution.
Articles of Confederation:
Constitution:
The framers wanted service in Congress to be more prestigious than it had been under the Articles, with compensation not dependent on the states.
But AFAIK there’s no evidence or even allegation of anything shady in the appointment of Burris. There was lots of evidence that Blago tried to sell the seat, but he had no buyers and, of course, after the arrest nobody would go near him with any type of quid pro quo. If evidence is adduced about Burris doing something to get the seat, that’s another matter, sure. But I can’t imagine such evidence exists, because the whole point of the appointment seems to have been a legal strategy to fight the charges by making the appointment as it ultimately happened completely above board.
–Cliffy
I would argue that, once the process has been marred by solicitation of a bribe, any appointment is compromised even if the appointee has done nothing wrong. Other, arguably better qualified candidates were passed over, in part because of the flawed process.
Similarly, in close elections, sometimes the “winner” isn’t seated through no fault of his own. The Senate refused to seat Louis Wyman in 1975, despite the fact that he had a certificate of election signed by his governor, and despite no accusation of any personal misconduct, because it judged his election to have been flawed and too close to determine a winner.