Better late than never for Burris
If only Roland Burris would have taken his own sound advice.
"The business of the people of Illinois should always come first," the appointed junior senator from Illinois said Friday when announcing he would not seek election to the post in 2010.
The announcement certainly is no surprise. He only managed to raise $845 in the first three months of this year, according to reports. He acknowledged fundraising would take him away from the business of the Senate if he was to seek election.
What he didn't acknowledge is what we all know: Burris never should have taken the job in the first place. While he most likely meant well, the 71-year-old sullied his reputation and his legacy as a pioneering black politician when he agreed to be disgraced outgoing Gov. Rod Blagojevich's nominee to President Barack Obama's former seat.
Burris took the job shortly after federal prosecutors accused Blagojevich of trying to sell the seat to the highest bidder.
But it wasn't just taking the job, it was then Burris giving at best incomplete testimony to the Illinois Legislature on how he got the job and who in the Blagojevich administration he talked to about it.
With all this going on in his short tenure in Washington, Burris has done little with the post and it's unlikely he'll be able to do much with it as a lame-duck senator.
That was the problem all along. We urged the former governor not to appoint anyone because of the taint that person would have, and we urged Burris not to accept and eventually to resign because of it. Neither listened to our pleas or similar pleas throughout the state. Burris' ego got in the way, and he certainly didn't put the business of Illinois first when taking on this job.
While his announcement Friday is welcome, it comes only after he was faced with political reality - no money means no chance at election. Not when Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, for example, has raised $1.1 million during the same period that Burris received $845 and another potential Democratic candidate is from the Kennedy family. Several Republicans also weighing their own candidacies.
On the plus side, the 2010 election gives Illinoisans a chance to listen to a healthy debate from both Republicans and Democrats that should be centered on problems and solutions for the state and the country. We welcome that debate as it will be a refreshing change of pace from what we've been subjected to so far in 2009.
With Burris' decision not to run, the state that produced senators like Paul Douglas, Everett Dirksen and Paul Simon has a chance to send someone of stature again to Washington. Someone who can make a difference.
That's our challenge as voters and should be our only goal.