United States Senate

If Maryland Republicans hope to pull off the sort of election victories the GOP won in Virginia, New Jersey and New York City on Tuesday, the local political organization had better get its act together: There still is no Republican heavyweight candidate running for the United States Senate seat in next year's election.Good campaigners for statewide offices are crucial for the state GOP. The party has a prominent and aggressive campaigner in the race for attorney general, former U.S. Attorney Richard D. Bennett.

WASHINGTON - Marking the end of a bizarre political odyssey, Roland Burris was sworn in as the junior senator from Illinois yesterday, taking his place in a body that not long ago vowed to bar him from its ranks. Burris took the oath of office in the Senate chamber a little more than a week after Democrats rejected his credentials as a senator because he was appointed by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. In sharp contrast to the scene last week, when a disappointed and defiant Burris held a lonely news conference in the rain outside the Capitol, yesterday he was surrounded by fellow Democratic senators, who shook his hand and congratulated him. Sen. Richard G. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who previously joined Senate leadership in a bid to block Burris from taking office, escorted the former Illinois comptroller to the front of the chamber.

WASHINGTON - Marking the end of a bizarre political odyssey, Roland Burris was sworn in as the junior senator from Illinois yesterday, taking his place in a body that not long ago vowed to bar him from its ranks. Burris took the oath of office in the Senate chamber a little more than a week after Democrats rejected his credentials as a senator because he was appointed by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. In sharp contrast to the scene last week, when a disappointed and defiant Burris held a lonely news conference in the rain outside the Capitol, yesterday he was surrounded by fellow Democratic senators, who shook his hand and congratulated him. Sen. Richard G. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who previously joined Senate leadership in a bid to block Burris from taking office, escorted the former Illinois comptroller to the front of the chamber.

CHICAGO - Brushing aside charges that he tried to sell Illinois' vacant U.S. Senate seat, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to the post yesterday in defiance of Senate leaders who said they would not admit anyone the governor selected. It was an abrupt about-face by Blagojevich, who had said after his arrest Dec. 9 on federal corruption charges that he favored a special election for a successor to President-elect Barack Obama. But the governor said he acted after Illinois' Democratic-controlled General Assembly declined to approve legislation for a special election.

United Daughters of the Confederacy have become increasingly irrelevant over the years. Dreams of the antebellum South with its belles and beaux, its magnolias and melodrama, have been replaced by a national awakening to the evil legacy of slavery and the need to ensure constitutional rights for all Americans.There was a time when the UDC made a little news, here and there, by seeking to expunge "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" from school songbooks or protesting the casting of a woman not born in Dixie as Scarlett in "Gone with the Wind."

Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, already substantially ahead of his Republican opponents on the campaign finance front, raked in thousands more last night at a Baltimore fund-raiser that featured an appearance by Vice President Al Gore.With polls suggesting that he is vulnerable and with Republicans staging a spirited primary for the right to take him on in November, Mr. Sarbanes, 61, has been crisscrossing the country and state, seeking contributions to finance his bid for a fourth Senate term.Between Jan. 1, 1993, and March 31 of this year, Mr. Sarbanes raised $820,000.

William Gladstone, the greatest politician of 19th century Great Britain (four times prime minister), once said of the United States Senate that it was "the most remarkable of all inventions of modern politics."So why can't someone write a good history of it?The most recent miss is 1997's "Profiles in Character: Hubris and Heroism in the U.S. Senate, 1789-1990" (Library of Congress, 262 pages, $34.95) by Joseph Martin Hernon.Professor emeritus of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Hernon seems to agree with Gladstone: He says of the Senate, "Too much of our history centers on presidencies . . . yet some senators who served unbroken terms for two or three decades were more politically significant than many presidents."

Bleary-eyed from a late night celebrating victory in the U.S. Senate race - followed by an early morning on the Internet to make sure the numbers would hold up - U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin met yesterday with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski to plot out their first 100 days together in Washington. Still unsure whether they would be joining a new Democratic majority in the Senate come January or sharing power with Republicans, the veteran legislators spoke of reaching across party lines to improve education, guarantee access to health care and chart a new course in Iraq.

He was a Republican. He had ridden to the White House on a wave of eight years of Republican prosperity, the likes of which the nation had never seen before. Taxes were down and everything was up, up, up, including the stock market and the flood of goods pouring into American homes. ''I have no fears for the future of our country,'' he said at his inaugural. ''It is bright with hope.''For a while the boom continued and his popularity rode the crest of a glorious high tide. Until everything went smash.

CHICAGO -- The "new" Bob Dole bounced off his chartered jet DTC at foggy Midway Airport yesterday, looking as if he were heading to the country club rather than to his new full-time job.Tieless, the soon-to-be-former senator, clad in a powder blue sports jacket, chinos, and tan tasseled loafers, had shed his dark business suit somewhere in the skies beyond the Capital Beltway, much as he is about to put Congress behind him."It's good to be out of Washington, D.C.," Dole, who at one point yesterday referred to himself as "ex-senator," said at a hastily arranged rally at a Chicago hotel.

Bleary-eyed from a late night celebrating victory in the U.S. Senate race - followed by an early morning on the Internet to make sure the numbers would hold up - U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin met yesterday with Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski to plot out their first 100 days together in Washington. Still unsure whether they would be joining a new Democratic majority in the Senate come January or sharing power with Republicans, the veteran legislators spoke of reaching across party lines to improve education, guarantee access to health care and chart a new course in Iraq.

Paul S. Sarbanes, the low-key liberal Democrat who became Maryland's longest-serving U.S. senator, announced yesterday that he would not seek re-election when his fifth term expires in 2006 - a declaration that jolts local politics and sets up a scramble for the state's first open Senate seat in nearly two decades. Sarbanes, 72, said his decision to give up his seat was based not on his frustration with the growing ideological divide in Congress or on health problems, but on his age. "The Senate is a six-year commitment, and I'll be 74 at the end of this term," Sarbanes said at a news conference in downtown Baltimore.

WASHINGTON - Heading into the campaign's final hours, the Republicans appear better positioned than the Democrats to gain control of a closely divided Congress in Tuesday's elections. But many analysts are predicting that control of Congress will remain split between the parties, a reflection of the nation's 50-50 partisan balance and a recipe for continued stalemate on important issues. "When we come out of this, I think it'll be similar to the numbers when we went in," said Stu Rothenberg, who publishes an independent newsletter on congressional elections.

WASHINGTON - Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes might be one of Maryland's most popular politicians, but he's collecting more than twice as much money from out-of-state contributors as from Marylanders during his re-election campaign - one of the highest rates in the nation. "Just who is he representing?" asks Paul H. Rappaport, the Republican challenger, as Sarbanes seeks a fifth term. The underdog Rappaport has been regularly raising the issue at campaign events in an effort to portray Sarbanes as removed from the state's interests.

WASHINGTON -- "Mr. Chief Justice, I object." Rising from his seat at the back of the Senate chamber, Democrat Tom Harkin of Iowa single-handedly brought the Republican prosecution's carefully scripted presentation to a halt last week.His objection had nothing to do with something President Clinton said or Monica Lewinsky did. It concerned the senators themselves -- and the seemingly technical point of whether it is proper to call them "jurors."Though the impeachment trial has begun in earnest, the senators are still struggling to define their role as they sit in judgment on the president's fitness to remain in office.

William Gladstone, the greatest politician of 19th century Great Britain (four times prime minister), once said of the United States Senate that it was "the most remarkable of all inventions of modern politics."So why can't someone write a good history of it?The most recent miss is 1997's "Profiles in Character: Hubris and Heroism in the U.S. Senate, 1789-1990" (Library of Congress, 262 pages, $34.95) by Joseph Martin Hernon.Professor emeritus of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Hernon seems to agree with Gladstone: He says of the Senate, "Too much of our history centers on presidencies . . . yet some senators who served unbroken terms for two or three decades were more politically significant than many presidents."

WASHINGTON - Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes might be one of Maryland's most popular politicians, but he's collecting more than twice as much money from out-of-state contributors as from Marylanders during his re-election campaign - one of the highest rates in the nation. "Just who is he representing?" asks Paul H. Rappaport, the Republican challenger, as Sarbanes seeks a fifth term. The underdog Rappaport has been regularly raising the issue at campaign events in an effort to portray Sarbanes as removed from the state's interests.

CHICAGO - Brushing aside charges that he tried to sell Illinois' vacant U.S. Senate seat, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to the post yesterday in defiance of Senate leaders who said they would not admit anyone the governor selected. It was an abrupt about-face by Blagojevich, who had said after his arrest Dec. 9 on federal corruption charges that he favored a special election for a successor to President-elect Barack Obama. But the governor said he acted after Illinois' Democratic-controlled General Assembly declined to approve legislation for a special election.

CHICAGO -- The "new" Bob Dole bounced off his chartered jet DTC at foggy Midway Airport yesterday, looking as if he were heading to the country club rather than to his new full-time job.Tieless, the soon-to-be-former senator, clad in a powder blue sports jacket, chinos, and tan tasseled loafers, had shed his dark business suit somewhere in the skies beyond the Capital Beltway, much as he is about to put Congress behind him."It's good to be out of Washington, D.C.," Dole, who at one point yesterday referred to himself as "ex-senator," said at a hastily arranged rally at a Chicago hotel.

Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, already substantially ahead of his Republican opponents on the campaign finance front, raked in thousands more last night at a Baltimore fund-raiser that featured an appearance by Vice President Al Gore.With polls suggesting that he is vulnerable and with Republicans staging a spirited primary for the right to take him on in November, Mr. Sarbanes, 61, has been crisscrossing the country and state, seeking contributions to finance his bid for a fourth Senate term.Between Jan. 1, 1993, and March 31 of this year, Mr. Sarbanes raised $820,000.