[media id=7055] Roland Burris makes his stand in defiance of Harry Reid today. MSNBC's Chris Matthews talks it over with a panel including Howard Fi
January 6, 2009

Roland Burris makes his stand in defiance of Harry Reid today.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews talks it over with a panel including Howard Fineman, Pat Buchanan, CNBC's John Harwood, Brian DuBose of the Moonie Times, and Ann Kornbluth of the WaPo, and it's unanimous: Reid really doesn't have a legal leg to stand on.

Being a right-winger, DuBose clearly relishes this mess:

No, the conservatives don't have to cause any havoc here. The Democrats are doing a fine job themselves. Pat is right -- Harry Reid has put the Senate in a very precarious legal position, constitutionally. They have no constitutional authority to not allow Burris to take his rightful seat in the Senate. Now, they could expel him for reasons that they come up with if they seat him, that's a much better position to be in. But by barring him from the door they put themselves on a path towards legal suicide with the Supreme Court, if Burris decides to go that route. They have no legal standing to stop a representative of a state -- which is what the Senate is, representatives of states in their entirety -- they have no legal position to stop him from representing that state, as he is duly bound to do, appointed by a governor who is in power. It's -- it's case closed. He is the senator. Period.

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