Democrats eat their own too

From the WSJ:

An Illinois court will eventually decide if Governor Rod Blagojevich is guilty of corruption. But on at least one issue he is more law-abiding than Majority Leader Harry Reid and fellow Democrats: the seating of Roland Burris to replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Blagojevich appointed Mr. Burris to represent Illinois on Tuesday, ahead of the official start of the 111th Congress next week. This was certainly an act of brash defiance given that nearly everyone had warned the Governor not to do so after he was heard on tape contemplating the sale of the seat for personal gain. But under Illinois law, Mr. Blagojevich had every legal right to do so.

As the Governor said in his announcement, the Illinois public also deserves its full measure of representation in Washington. Mr. Burris is a former state attorney general who is untainted by the charges against Mr. Blagojevich. After the Blagojevich tapes were made public, Democrats who run the state legislature said they'd pass a law to require a special election for the Senate. But their passion for that option ebbed when it became clear that a Republican could win, especially amid this Democratic fiasco. When the legislature failed to act, Mr. Blagojevich saw his opening to name Mr. Burris.

Meanwhile, Mr. Reid and Washington Democrats are refusing to seat Mr. Burris, never mind their lack of authority to do so. As an initial matter, they're hiding behind the Illinois secretary of state, who is refusing to certify the appointment. But Mr. Burris has asked a court to order the secretary of state to carry out what under state law would typically be a nondiscretionary duty. In any event, Beltway Democrats can't inject themselves into what is clearly a matter of Illinois law.

The legal precedent here is the Supreme Court's 7-1 decision in Powell v. McCormack in 1969. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell had been accused of corruption but was nonetheless re-elected in 1966. House Democrats declined to seat him, Powell sued, and the Supreme Court ruled that Congress had acted unconstitutionally in denying him his seat. Congress could have expelled Powell with a two-thirds vote, as stipulated in the Constitution, but it couldn't deny him the seat in the first instance.

Mr. Reid is also attempting the dodge of referring the matter to the Senate Rules Committee, which is run by Democrats, but the Powell precedent ought to be clear even to political lawyers. If Mr. Reid wants to banish Mr. Burris, he must first seat him and then persuade two-thirds of the Senate to expel him. Needless to say, the last thing Mr. Reid wants to do is create turmoil in his party by expelling an African-American Democrat whose only offense has been to accept an appointment to serve. But if Mr. Reid does go that route, we'd suggest worthier expulsion possibilities, such as Connecticut's Chris Dodd, who received sweetheart mortgages from Countrywide Financial while sitting on the Banking Committee.

Comment: This whole pathetic episode and the fallout yet to come points to a very obvious liberal trait: When it is one of their enemies or a perceived threat--even within their own party--they easily make allowances for ignoring the rules of law and jurisprudence in order to rid or crush the perceived threat no matter what. Who needs rule of law when you have self-righteous indignation, right? With little angry men like Harry Reid in charge of congress for the next couple of years, we can expect more of this crass behavior.