That said, if Reid et al. really do want to “win” this, they probably can, by making a kangaroo court “finding” that Burris bribed his way into office, and relying on the political question doctrine to keep the courts from re-visiting the issue. But once we go that route, watch for the first Republican Congress over the next 6 years (if indeed there is one) to impeach Obama for the high crime and misdemeanor of “being a douchebag.” No court would rule on that, either, so if “abiding by the Constitution” means “doing stuff courts will let us get away with,” then there really aren’t all that many limits, after all.

They should consider themselves lucky Blago didn’t appoint himself to the post.

Ain’t gonna fly … I agree, nothing but political Kabuki Theatre.

Since Gov. Blagojevich appointed the Senator with a “Writ of Election”, it’s an election in the technical term of art in this case.

It is not entirely implausible to suggest that the Senate could reject the election as corrupt, on notional available evidence (just as they could on the evidence of a thoroughly corrupted general election).

I don’t think Reid’s right that this is “clear” and “goes back generations”, as I’m not aware of it ever being done.

But it’s also not clearly wrong that they could refuse to seat a member in sufficiently dubious circumstances.

(I think that practically speaking the circumstances aren’t that dubious, as there’s no evidence that this appointment involved any wrongdoing, despite the conspiracy to commit some regarding the office earlier.

In other words, I think Reid is wrong as a practical matter, and when he says “do whatever we want to do” as if frivolous or arbitrary attempts to apply the Section 5 power would be valid – but he is at least plausibly right to the extent that he claims the Senate can refuse to seat a member if it believes his election was corrupt.)