Burris Says He'll Be Sworn in to Senate Seat Thurs

Illinois U.S. Senate appointee Roland Burris smiles during a news conference in Chicago, Monday, Jan. 12, 2009, after hearing he would be seated in the Senate later this week. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

(AP)

Senate appointee Roland Burris will be sworn into office Thursday, his office said, closing a painful and protracted certification process ensnared in the federal corruption investigation of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Senate Democrats have reversed course, grudgingly accepting the former Illinois attorney general into their exclusive club as the person who will replace the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama.

"I really never doubted that I would be seated," Burris said in a nationally broadcast television interview Tuesday. "It was just a matter of going through the process and making sure that the Senate rules were abided by," he said.

Asked about any role that Obama might have played in softening the opposition to his seating by Senate Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, Burris said, "I have no knowledge of what the president-elect did."

Reid, D-Nev., and Durbin, D-Ill., made the announcement of acceptance in a joint statement Monday, saying Burris "is now the senator-designate from Illinois and, as such, will be accorded all the rights and privileges of a senator-elect."

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Burris' office said Vice President Dick Cheney would administer the oath to Burris on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.

Burris called himself honored and humbled to be the state's newest senator. "I'm thankful for the opportunity to serve," he said at a news conference Monday in Chicago. "I recognize that my appointment triggered a challenging time for many."

The development prevented the impasse that has plagued Democrats from dragging on into Obama's inauguration festivities, and it capped a gradual retreat by the Senate's top Democrats.

Durbin, who joked at a Tuesday morning news conference on Capitol Hill that he was for the moment both the junior and the senior senator from his state, said Burris would soon be out from under the cloud that has hung over his appointment.