So does Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich have the right to appoint Roland Burris as the next senator from Illinois or doesn’t he?

A helpful analysis from CNN.com notes the following:

Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to be “judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members.” Democratic senators in recent days have cited that provision when asserting “our Constitutional authority” without further explanation.

But Article 1, Section 3 lists those qualifications: “No person shall be senator who shall not have attained to the age of 30 years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States.” The potential senator must also be an inhabitant of the state from which he or she is chosen. Burris, 71 and a lifelong Illinoisan, certainly meets all those requirements.

It’s looking pretty bad for the Senate, if you ask me.

SCOTUSblog analyzes the leading case on point, Powell v. McCormack, in which the Supreme Court said quite clearly: “The House is without power to exclude any member-elect who meets the Constitution’s requirements for membership.”

Neither the case nor the Constitution say anything about whether the Senate has the power to judge the manner in which the appointment was made — or the person who made it.

As SCOTUSblog writes, there are a bunch of outstanding questions that our ever-confident Senate leaders have apparently “already answered for themselves.”

Among them: Is the power of the Senate (or House) to judge the mode of selection the same whether one was chosen by election or appointment? Does a state have any more power to control the method of filling a vacancy in one of its Senate seats than it does to hold an election for such a seat? How much deference, if any, does the Senate owe to the state’s mode of appointing a Senator?  Is a “taint” perceived in the mode of appointment a sufficient justification for excluding the appointee?

All this may end up being decided by the courts — perhaps ultimately, the Supreme Court. Another likely scenario is that the Senate will drag out its investigation of the Burris selection until Illinois legislators can get their act together to impeach Blagojevich.

In the meantime, as TPM reports today, the Democrats are going to do everything they can to keep Burris from even getting inside the building:

The Democratic leadership’s current contingency plan for next week is reportedly for Burris to be met at the chamber by a doorman telling him he’s not allowed inside. If he still tries to go in, armed police officers could intervene to get him away. Burris told the Los Angeles Times that he wants to avoid a scene and have all of this negotiated before he arrives, but it’s unlikely that he could negotiate his way towards actually being seated.

All of which means that Illinois is likely to be down a U.S. senator for a while.  At least the state will have the satisfaction of making new law — and history — in its struggle to seat one.