Voters should decide on Burris deceit

Mark Brown:

With any luck, Sen. Roland Burris will see such vindication in a Downstate prosecutor's decision not to charge him with perjury that he'll try to use it as a basis to run in 2010.

That would give Illinois voters the chance to let him know exactly what they think of his act -- and render a more meaningful verdict on his honesty than could have been expected from any jury of his peers in Sangamon County.

If Burris has any sense, on the other hand, he'll continue to blame all his credibility troubles on the media and announce right now that he's calling it a career as soon as his term ends.

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It's still plain as day Burris intentionally misled everyone about his dalliances with disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich in pursuit of the Senate seat until the job was safely his. It's just not nearly so clear that he committed the very specific act of knowingly making a false statement while being questioned under oath.

Schmidt, a Republican, said Burris' incomplete answers to the broad questions asked of him by legislators didn't amount to perjury, explaining that the burden was on them to pin him down. They'll know better next time.

It's better this way anyhow.

The last thing the people of this state needed right now was a sensational but marginal prosecution of a public official who has already shown his willingness to turn his tribulations into a racial cause.

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If Burris chooses to expose himself to the verdict of that voting booth again, however, Democratic primary voters will have ample opportunity to atone. Republicans, alas, won't get that chance because he won't make it to the general election.

It's still possible Burris will be cited in some manner by the Senate ethics committee, which will be judging his actions by a different standard than this state's perjury statute. But I still say the ethics investigation won't -- and shouldn't -- result in his expulsion, unless the panel comes up with something beyond the known facts.

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The Democrats should pay a price for the mess their politics has created in Illinois. Brown seems to think they will not, but that is probably more from the poor showing of Republicans lately in the state. That is too bad. Having a strong Republican party would help Illinois keep the Democrats more honest. The problem has been that the corruption that haunts the state has been bipartisan, but the Democrats have been better at getting away with it.

The rest of the country is getting a glimpse of the "Chicago way" and it is not very pretty. The voters of Illinois should do something about that.