One-time banker and self-proclaimed “trail blazer” Roland Burris, 71, the recently appointed Democratic junior senator from Illinois, continued to give his party leaders the vapors when he announced last week that he won’t campaign to retain the Senate seat that went vacant with the election of President Barack Obama.
Burris was appointed by then Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich in December, less than a month after the governor was arrested for allegedly trying to sell Obama’s Senate seat, making a place for himself in the annals of American political infamy.
Blagojevich, who was impeached and kicked out of office, has pleaded not guilty to the federal charges, while an investigation into what Burris knew and when he knew it is pending in the Senate Ethics Committee.
Roland Burris
Burris said his decision was about money, not the cloud of corruption that has followed him since he first tried to take his seat in Senate chambers and was turned away because his “credentials” were not in order.
As an African American who was appointed to replace the Senate’s only black member, Burris was allowed to take his seat after accusations of racism rattled the Democratic leadership. He said he intends to complete his appointed term, which ends in January 2011.
“I love serving in the United States Senate. Make no mistake about that,” Burris said. “I love serving the people of Illinois. Make no mistake about that.”
But, he continued, “Political races have become far too expensive in this country. And in making this decision, I was called to choose between spending my time raising funds or spending my time raising issues for my state. I believe that the business of the people of the state of Illinois should always come first.”
Coming on the heels of Al Franken’s swearing-in on Tuesday as the new junior senator from Minnesota, which at least temporarily gave Senate Democrats a so-called “filibuster-proof” majority, Burris’ declaration as a lame duck put another potential ding in that supposed armor plate.
Obama and other top Democrats had been trying to recruit Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to run for the Senate, but she rebuffed them Wednesday by announcing she intends to run for a third term. Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who calls Obama his “friend and mentor,” is exploring a primary run. Among those named as possible Republican contenders are Illinois GOP Chairman Andy McKenna, Rep. Mark Kirk, and Chris Kennedy, CEO of Merchandise Mart.
Burris came to the current controversy as the first black to hold statewide office in Illinois, first as attorney general, then as comptroller, but failed in a challenge to unseat Mayor Richard Daley, and in three attempts to be elected governor, including a 2002 primary challenge to Blagojevich.
Still unanswered is a ghoulish question that has led news reporters and photographers to stake out a particularly imposing burial site in Chicago’s Oak Woods Cemetery. Burris, a diminutive man with a demonstrably outsized ego, has built his own mausoleum with self-tributes chiseled in stone, including his political resume under the heading, “Trail Blazer.” Because he left plenty of room for new entries, competition continues over who will be the first to report the addition of “U.S. senator.”
Burt Constable, columnist for the suburban Chicago Daily Herald, has noted that only a few feet from Burris’ tomb is a small headstone marking the grave of Jesse Owens, the black track-and-field champion who destroyed Hitler’s claims of Aryan superiority by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin.
Among the other trail blazers Constable found at Oak Woods are physicist Enrico Fermi; William Rainey Harper, first president of the University of Chicago and Bradley University; and gangster Giacamo “Big Jim” Colosimo, the man who brought young Al Capone to Chicago.
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