The Replacement

The rise of Roland Burris.
by Jeffrey Toobin
The New Yorker
March 23, 2009

Roland Burris still occupies temporary office space in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, in a suite far from the floor of the United States Senate, so when the buzzer signalling an imminent vote interrupted his lunch the other day, he put down his plastic soupspoon, left his sandwich untouched, and hustled out into the marble hallway. “I’m not missing any votes,” he said. “They’ll get on me for that, too.”

Burris, the junior senator from Illinois, is trim and fit for a man of seventy-one, with a full head of hair barely flecked with gray. He beckoned a young aide to keep up as he bounded toward an elevator reserved for senators. There, Burris was joined by two Democratic colleagues, first Maria Cantwell, of Washington state, then Blanche Lincoln, of Arkansas. Burris had been a senator for less than two months—he was appointed by Rod Blagojevich, then the governor of Illinois, on December 30th, to fill the unexpired term of Barack Obama—and he had yet to learn the names of all of his colleagues. “Hello, Senator!” Burris said cheerfully to each woman. They nodded, smiled back at him, and, looking slightly embarrassed, stared down at the floor.

In the basement of the building, Burris raced to catch the subway to the Capitol, and when he arrived he met Ron Wyden, of Oregon, and Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, who, having already voted, were heading in the opposite direction. “Senators!” Burris said, and the two men made the same gestures as the pair in the elevator had: a friendly nod followed by an averted gaze. Burris darted into one of the tiny elevators that take senators up to the Senate floor, and Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, squeezing so hard that the men’s heads were practically touching. “Hang in there, my buddy!” Coburn said.

(More here.)