Governor’s pick: I’ll go to D.C.

Chicago —- Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s choice to take Barack Obama’s Senate seat plans to be in Washington next week when new senators are sworn in, but he won’t make a scene if he’s turned away by Senate leaders who object to his appointment.

“That is not my style. I am not seeking to be confrontational,” former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris said Wednesday.

Blagojevich’s decision to tap Burris for the seat thrust the 71-year-old political veteran in the spotlight and into a corner.

The Illinois secretary of state refused to certify the appointment, the lieutenant governor called the selection an insult and Senate Democrats said they would not seat him.

Even President-elect Barack Obama was cold to the appointment, saying the Senate “cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat.”

“We believe in clean government, and Rod Blagojevich has unclean hands,” Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said.

An attorney for Burris said paperwork was filed Wednesday with the Illinois Supreme Court asking it to force Secretary of State Jesse White to certify his appointment.

Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald filed a motion seeking a 90-day extension of the deadline for returning an indictment against Blagojevich. It says “multiple witnesses” have come forward in recent weeks and investigators have to review “thousands of intercepted phone calls.”

Federal prosecutors normally have 30 days to file an indictment against a defendant. That deadline would have been Jan. 7; the extension would give prosecutors until April 7.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney said a federal judge is scheduled to review the motion Monday.

Burris’ appointment Tuesday injected race into the drama surrounding the Democratic governor. Burris, the first African-American elected to major statewide office in Illinois, would replace Obama, who had been the Senate’s only black member.

Rep. Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, on Tuesday urged Senate leaders not to block Burris, saying they should not “hang and lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer.”

Burris didn’t back away from Rush’s assertion Wednesday in an interview on NBC’s “Today.”

“It is a fact, there are no African-Americans in the United States Senate,” he said. “Is it racism that is taking place? That’s a question that someone may raise.”

Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 after federal prosecutors allegedly recorded conversations in which he discussed appointing someone Obama favored in exchange for a position in the new president’s Cabinet or naming someone favored by a union if he got a high-level union job.

THE ROLAND W. BURRIS FILE

> Age: 71

> Birthdate: Aug. 3, 1937.

> Residence: Chicago

> Education: Southern Illinois University, bachelor’s degree; Howard University Law School, law degree.

> Experience: Director, Illinois Department of General Services, 1973-77; Illinois comptroller, 1979-91; Illinois attorney general, 1991-95.

> Occupation: Lawyer.

> Family: Wife, Berlean; and two children, Roland II and Rolanda Sue.

—- Associated Press