Message #121809

[Bianca]

Mr. Fitzgerald, who had been expected to indict Mr. Blagojevich by next week, asked for 90 more days, saying the holiday schedules had prevented grand jury meetings and that the length of the investigation into the governor, more than five years, and the thousands of intercepted phone calls required additional time. Mr. Blagojevich has denied the charges.

With The Times's Monica DaveySeveral black lawmakers said the Senate’s efforts to block the appointment of Mr. Burris by Mr. Blagojevich would be viewed by many black voters as a signal that systemic roadblocks continue to prevent qualified, respected African-Americans from climbing the political ladder.

They said Mr. Obama’s opposition to the appointment would do little to ease such concerns among their black constituents, who remain concerned that the Senate has no black members.

“I do think it’s a dilemma for the leadership of the party,” Representative Payne said, referring to Democratic leaders in the Senate. “Everyone acknowledges that he’s a great choice. So to deny that person, I just think would send a disappointing signal.”

Throughout Wednesday the telephone lines were burning in the studios of WVON, a black talk radio station in Chicago, where scores of callers voiced their outrage at what they described as the racist efforts to block Mr. Burris from taking his seat.

“We’ve come out of this presidential election so steeped in change, but the game still remains the same,” said Michael L. Peery, a producer at the station, describing the sentiments of the callers. “When you’re African-American, you always have to leap a little higher. It’s never really a level playing field here.”

The Rev. Marshall Hatcher, a black pastor at New Mount Pilgrim Church on Chicago’s West Side, said white politicians who reject Mr. Burris would suffer among black voters, adding that whites “show a disconnect” when they fail to see why it is so important to African-Americans to have a black replace Mr. Obama in the Senate.

In an effort to fill the seat, on Dec. 24, Representative Davis met with Sam Adam Sr., a well-known criminal defense lawyer here whose son has represented Mr. Blagojevich during the impeachment hearings in Springfield, in Mr. Davis’s Chicago office. There, Mr. Adam said the governor wanted to give him the Senate job.

“They thought I was the best candidate,” Mr. Davis recalled. Mr. Davis, who said he had hoped to be considered for the post long before Mr. Blagojevich’s legal troubles, said he asked Mr. Adam for a day, Christmas, to weigh the question. Mr. Adam did not return phone calls from The New York Times. Neither did his son, Sam Adam Jr., nor Mr. Blagojevich’s other lawyer, Edward Genson.

The decision, Mr. Davis said, did not take long, and required a conversation with his wife, the only one he consulted.

“I felt that if I was to take the appointment,” Mr. Davis said, “I would spend so much of my time deflecting and defending the position that it would take away from my real reason for being involved in politics and political life: to try and find solutions to problems.”

On Friday morning, meeting again with Mr. Adam, Mr. Davis recommended Mr. Burris as having “impeccable credentials.” Mr. Burris’s name had come up as a possible replacement for Mr. Obama even before Mr. Blagojevich’s arrest, in a long list with others, none of whom said on Wednesday that they had been contacted with offers similar to Mr. Davis.

Later on Friday, a representative for the governor spoke with Mr. Burris, according to Fred G. Lebed, Mr. Burris’s longtime business partner.

“My first reaction was I need time to think about this, and I need to consider all of the possibilities and what my friends and family and supporters really thought about it,” Mr. Burris recalled. He spent Friday and Saturday calling nearly 200 people: friends, judges, fellow lawyers. “It was all positive,” he said of their reactions. A lawyer, Mr. Burris also studied the law over the weekend, he said, to satisfy himself that Mr. Blagojevich was within his authority in making the appointment.

On Sunday afternoon, Mr. Blagojevich himself called Mr. Burris at his South Side home. In a 20 minute call, they sealed the appointment.

On Monday, before the plan was announced, Mr. Burris said he asked his staff to contact Mr. Obama and other Democratic leaders. Somehow, the calls did not reach Mr. Obama, Mr. Burris said. The two have been supportive of each other over the years, endorsing each other’s candidacies and participating in fundraising events; they were never close personal friends, but allies from distinct generations in Illinois politics. Mr. Burris said the last time they spoke was more than a year ago.

Although he was describing himself as a senator, Mr. Burris said he has yet to get a plane ticket to Washington or to form a staff.

“We have absolutely, positively nothing,” he said, noting that he was already receiving requests from residents seeking tickets to the presidential inauguration.