Day: January 6, 2009

Roland Burris tried to take President-elect Barack Obama’s Illinois Senate seat Tuesday but failed in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress. "Mr. Burris is not in possession of the necessary credentials from the state of Illinois," declared Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Burris, 71, earlier confirmed that Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson had informed him in a private meeting that his credentials lacked a required signature and his state’s seal.

The Democratic-dominated Congress convenes Tuesday to confront perhaps the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and to grapple with a hugely ambitious agenda set by President-elect Barack Obama.

The opening day of a two-year session is typically more ceremony than substance, and Congress often recesses until the new president takes office or after the State of the Union address at the end of January.

Although he calls himself a senator, Roland Burris has found little support among fellow Democrats in his effort to take the Senate seat to which embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed him.

The Senate was scheduled to convene at noon Tuesday with its newest members. Yet the controversy over the appointment of Burris by a governor accused of trying to sell the old seat of President-elect Barack Obama and the ongoing dispute over election results in Minnesota practically guaranteed that both seats would remain empty by day’s end.

The morning after the Nov. 4 election, Norm Coleman stood before TV cameras, declared victory in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election and said that if he were opponent Al Franken he’d "step aside."

Two months later, Coleman finds himself down by nearly the same margin he appeared to hold over Franken that day. His lawyers said Coleman — who later expressed regret at that post-election remark — is not ready to step aside, vowing a lawsuit that’s likely to keep the race in limbo for several more months.