Updated: Blagojevich Appoints Roland Burris as Obama's Senate Successor

By Satyam Khanna, Think Progress
Posted on December 30, 2008, Printed on November 26, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://www.thinkprogress.org//116298/

Update:

Update: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., views Roland Burris as "unacceptable," an aide told Politico.

Update: Progress Illinois notes that when news broke of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's improprieties, Burris condemned the governor's actions as "pretty appalling" and "just reprehensible."

Original post: The Chicago Tribune reports that Gov. Rod Blagojevich is expected today to name former Illinois Attorney Gen. Roland Burris, the first African American to win statewide office in 1978, to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the Senate. The move comes after Democratic leaders criticized the prospect of Blagojevich going ahead with the appointment process. "No appointment by this governor under these circumstances could produce a credible replacement," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said this month. Burris reportedly "stepped up his efforts to win the governor's support" in the days following Blagojevich's arrest.

Satyam Khanna is a research associate for the Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.

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