New Senate takes shape - with 2 missing pieces
Burris denied entry over seal; Franken, in battle on recount, absent
WASHINGTON - Thirty-two senators elected in November were sworn in yesterday to open a congressional session they promised would confront major issues facing the country, but eyes were not on the chairs being occupied as much as those still empty.
Both Democrats Al Franken and Roland Burris were absent from seats they declared rightfully theirs, inaugurating new chapters in procedural and legal intrigue that could potentially take months to resolve.
Franken did not even travel to Washington from Minnesota because Republican incumbent Norm Coleman is still challenging the results of their election. Burris was turned away because the man who appointed him to the Illinois seat that last belonged to President-elect Barack Obama faces federal charges of trying to sell it. After being refused entry to the Senate chamber, Burris was left to wander the Capitol grounds in the rain while introducing himself as "the junior senator from the state of Illinois" and hinting he would go to court.
The outcome of their adventures will probably have little bearing on the chamber's balance of power, but the confusion over them gave the sharpest indication yet that congressional ambitions of quickly tackling big problems may have been too optimistic.
"The overall feeling is, 'Let's get something done,' " said Senator Mark Udall, a newly elected Democrat from Colorado. "Of course, we'd like to have the full Senate seated. . . . We need a full complement of the Senate to work."
For the first time, Capitol Hill began to reflect the effects of the November election that drastically reconfigured Washington's topography of power. A flock of fresh Democratic arrivals in both chambers - including senators from New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Virginia, where the party flexed new electoral might - took office, giving the party dominant control of the legislative branch.
Vice President Dick Cheney swore in Joe Biden - on an oversized 100-year-old family Bible clutched like a stack of phone books - for his seventh term in a Delaware Senate seat he intends to resign when he takes Cheney's job in two weeks.
Two senators planning to abandon their seats for Cabinet posts - Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Interior-designate Ken Salazar - worked the floor, accepting congratulations from colleagues who will soon vote on their nominations.
The Republican presidential standard-bearer, John McCain, received only a perfunctory welcome from colleagues when he entered the chamber. Slouched in his chair during the swearing-in, McCain broke out in a full smile only when Udall - the son of McCain's mentor when he entered Congress a generation ago - completed his oath. Afterward, Udall and McCain shared a warm hug.
Yet the limits of such bipartisan warmth in the legislative process were already becoming clear. Demands by Republican leaders for a role in the crafting of an economic stimulus package appeared to ensure that such legislation would not be ready for Obama's signature upon his Jan. 20 inauguration, as transition aides had requested. Senate aides said the bill might not be ready until February.
"The idea that they're going to be done with a stimulus bill by the 21st was overly ambitious," said Trent Lott, the former Senate majority leader. "That may be the biggest bill in history, and they need to take a look at it."
Even then, Democrats may be stuck trying to pass it without senators from Minnesota and Illinois. After Coleman announced yesterday that he would mount a court challenge to a recount that Monday declared Franken the winner, the Republican leader in the Senate indicated that he was likely to fight any effort to seat Franken.
"The only people who have declared the Minnesota Senate race over are Washington Democrats and the candidate," Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell declared on the Senate floor.
Members of both parties, however, seemed interested in ignoring Burris, who would be the Senate's only black member. The former Illinois attorney general arrived at the Capitol through a visitor's door, but was quickly dismissed by the secretary of the Senate for presenting credentials lacking a proper state seal. The Illinois secretary of state has refused to certify any appointment made by Governor Rod Blagojevich, arrested last month on graft charges.
The fate of both Midwestern seats could end up mired in the Senate's Rules Committee, whose chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein of California, broke from other Democratic leaders yesterday and said that Burris should be seated.
A third seat, representing New York, awaits a decision from the state's governor, who has said he will not announce a replacement for Clinton until she resigns.
On a day of changing roles, Biden played many: a senator who insisted on being sworn in out of a love for congressional pageantry, an incoming vice president negotiating for his administration's agenda, and a globetrotter preparing for his last trip as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee he has led for years.
"Everybody's different from me," Biden said when asked how his replacement, John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, would differ in the chairman's role, before he turned a corner and greeted the 11-year-old daughter of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu.
"Remember," the vice president-elect cautioned the girl and a friend, brushing their cheeks, "no dating till you're 30."
Sasha Issenberg can be reached at sissenberg@globe.com 