No Rubber Stamp

Some supporters of Roland Burris say that resistance to seating him in the U.S. Senate amounts to racism. But one man who blocked his nomination, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, calls this a hollow distraction.

White, an African-American, tells NEWSWEEK he has "taken a lot of heat" for refusing to certify Gov. Rod Blagojevich's selection of Burris, who would be the only black member of the Senate. "I wasn't going to be a rubber stamp" for "a man who just got out of jail," White says of Blagojevich, who was arrested by federal agents on Dec. 9 and charged with scheming to solicit bribes for the seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. White says he simply could not certify a Senate appointment "made under a cloud."

White, who drank from "colored-only" water fountains and rode in the back of the bus during his college days in Alabama, says he can recognize racism when he sees it—and corruption too, for that matter. There has been no indication that Burris has done anything improper to obtain the nomination from Blagojevich, but many Democrats believe that any appointee by the embattled governor could not be effective. At least for now, White's refusal to sign Burris's certificate of appointment has been cited by Senate officials as the reason that Burris cannot take office. But there are signs that opposition to Burris in the Senate could be softening, with Sen. Diane Feinstein saying this week that the Illinois politician should be seated and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying he would reconsider Burris's nomination under the right circumstances.

For his part, Burris, 71, has accused White of overstepping his powers by refusing to certify the Senate appointment. Burris has filed a lawsuit in Illinois to order White to sign the paperwork. "We don't believe the people of Illinois elected Jesse White to be the de facto governor," Timothy Wright, a lawyer for Burris, has told reporters. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan sided with White on Wednesday, filing motions suggesting that the secretary of state isn't required to sign Burris's papers.

While Burris is known as the first African-American in Illinois to win statewide office—serving as comptroller from 1979 to 1991 and as attorney general from 1991 to 1995—White has broken his own political barriers. Elected to the state legislature in 1974, White was the first African-American in Illinois to represent a district where a majority of residents were white. For 16 years, he represented a section in the North Side of Chicago that included the high-rent neighborhoods of Streeterville and Lincoln Park, but also included the desperately poor Cabrini Green housing complex, populated almost entirely by blacks. "They used to say my district stretched from the Gold Coast to the Soul Coast," says White, who has long cultivated support across racial lines.

White was a protégé of the late Chicago political boss George Dunne, known for his movie-star elegance and Irish charm, the rare white politician who stood by Harold Washington, an African-American, when he won the Democratic nomination for mayor, and later the election. Years before, Dunne had launched White's political career. "George Dunne stuck his neck out for me in the '70s," says White, "when it wasn't a very popular thing to do."