Oh, Those Tricky Massachusetts Democrats
Aug 20th, 2009 | 25 responses
When a political party stacks the deck in their favor, the cards they are dealt sometimes fall the wrong way. Such is the case of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass) who has sent a letter to Massachusetts elected leaders seeking a change in the 2004 state succession law and allow his Senate seat to be filled rapidly.
Kennedy, who liberals love and is affectionately called the Lion of the Senate, is suffering from brain cancer and has missed most of this year’s Senate sessions. The 2004 law was enacted for fear then Gov. Mitt Romney would appoint a Republican if Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry won that year’s presidential election. The new law required a special election called within 145 days of the vacancy.
“I strongly support that law and the principle that the people should elect their senator,” Kennedy wrote in the letter, dated July 2 but only sent to state officials this week. “I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election.”
Kennedy, a champion of universal health care, suggested an interim replacement be named by the governor or state legislature on condition the person is not a candidate for the vacant seat in the special election.
Timing of Kennedy’s letter does not reflect a worsening of his terminal brain cancer, his aids say. But it does reflect Kennedy’s concerns for passage of a landmark health reform bill the Senate is expected to vote on this fall. The Senate has 60 elected Democrats which would assure passage if all were unanimous in their voting. However, Kennedy and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) have been chronically absent because of ill health. Democratic leaders fear the 40 Senate Republicans will vote a straight party line against any health reform legislation.
It seems to me Kennedy is asking his state to send a ringer to the Senate to be his stand-in surrogate vote. That’s okay because most voters in Massachusetts would probably concur based on that state’s track record.
But it sure smacks the democratic process with a black eye. It feels dirty. The person who is appointed as a lame duck would be a dupe for the Kennedy dynasty. Besides, during that 145-day interim the appointee would be voting on other critical legislation such as climate change. The appointee in effect would be doing what he is told by party leaders.
Just because Kennedy has served in the Senate for nearly a half century does not make him a god or kingmaker. But, don’t blame good, old lovable Teddy.
Blame his state’s Democratic leaders who changed the rules in their infinite wisdom to stick it to a rare Republican governor in that New England commonwealth. They changed the rules. Let them live by them.
Minnesota survived with only one senator for seven months.
(Author’s Note: I was unable to find senate succession laws for West Virginia in the event Sen. Byrd dies in office. Sorry, mountaineers.
25 Responses to “Oh, Those Tricky Massachusetts Democrats”
No, it's not a “stacked deck”. Nor would a new Senator be a “ringer”. If the Massachusetts congress makes law in accordance with its constitution, then its law. period. If Democrats have enough seats in the Massachusetts legislature to make such a law, then they do so according to law. Obviously Senator Ted Kennedy wants enough votes to pass healthcare legislation in the face of Republican non-co-operation. Nothing abnormal here.
Why is it that Republicans have such a hard time with understanding law?
Ha, ha. The Liberal Lion (as in “We're Off to See the Wizard”), tainted by far-left blunders that truly kept the Presidency out of his hand…
This is Massachusetts, after all. It's got a liberal and alien reputation worse often than that of New York (or the silly West Coast variant of the disease syndrome in California).
The first thing for anyone cynical and smart to expect is a stunt like giving Barney Frank both Senate seats and two votes, to be used in unison or separately (independently) if the “Honorable” Mr. Frank so chooses.
I'm not concerned with the “mechanics” here. The real world motivates us to speculate instead on what is more important, who will replace Mr. Kennedy.
As to the mechanics themselves, this is not undermining of the democratic (little D) change to the Constitution early last century as part of the Progressive era (and a mistake, say many of us learned types who still appreciate the federalism concept as well as the nature of so much popular or _vulgar_ behavior generated on the left side of the political scale or spectrum). This is simply a remedy for not only recent problems with Senate succession but more generally (and using the Reagan case several years ago for the Presidency) seeking a definition of what to do in case of temporary as well as permanent vacancy of office (for whatever reasons), namely what to do here in case of temporary or permanent _incapacitation_.
The question has to be asked of all, even alien, notoriously-far-left Massachusetts: Why should it forfeit or relinquish one of its two votes?
(The children will say a state like Wyoming has no right to ask that question, but these kids aren't competent on the topic of the Senate and why its structure is legitimate, or they just hate federalism and want everything to be popular (vulgar) in structure.)
“But it sure smacks the democratic process with a black eye. It feels dirty.”
Jerry, popular election of Senators (and worse, popular election of the President) is over-hyped by kids.
Ted Kennedy obviously is at grave risk of not completing his Senate term, so how should he be replaced?
Another popular vote is _not_ necessary if the replacement (by death, resignation, impachment and removal from office, straying into Syria and being held by the authorities there*, etc.) is at an interim moment. Moreover, an election might be simply too expensive (at any time, not during a current slump economically in a state starved for funds to stay solvent). Just have something reasonable happen, such as having Kennedy name (appoint) a successor or have the governor of Massachusetts do it (including naming himself — he's probably as likely as anyone else to be at the head of the list of candidates).
* Someone like Pelosi or another notorious lib Dem in Congress? Americans would say, “KEEP HER!”
Why not change the law to say that it is up to the party in power to determine how to choose a replacement based on what is most beneficial to them because that is what is happening here. The worries about temporarily losing a voice in the Senate did not seem troubling in 2004.
“Minnesota survived with only one senator for seven months”
We survived (with a lot of work from Sen. Klobuchar and her staff) but all residents of MN had less representation than we are due under the Constitution.
So try doing without one of your representatives for an extended amount of time before saying someone else can.
However, Kennedy and Sen. Harry Byrd (D-West Virginia)
psst, Jerry, Robert Byrd
DLS–
Tell us, what is the “democratic process” anyway?
We would love to hear your interpretation, I'm sure.
I'm not logically obliged to define the “democratic process” as a result of what I posted earlier.
On the other hand, what I have said about democratic measures such as direct election of Senators and what is widely sought, of the President as well (but not about other things in more-sophisticated states, the initiative, referendum, and recall, as they didn't apply here) are accurate statements, as is the note aloud I posted that so often what is popular (and exploited by the Dems, as it involves their voters so often) is also vulgar.
“Why not change the law to say that it is up to the party in power to determine how to choose a replacement based on what is most beneficial to them “
Absolutely not! Not merely because the Dems, especially lib-Dems, are so bad (as they've shown themselves to be this year in Washington), but because this gives the major political parties even more power, “enshrines” them, which is the exact _opposite_ of what we should be seeking (_less_ and more _dilute_ party power, as well as other benefits from an environment of 4-6+ parties and proportional representation in the House of Representatives insofar as Washington should be affected).
This is nothing new. Look up the details of the last redistricting in Texas for how the Republicans play this game.
!00% partisan move and Kennedy doesn't give a damn about the people of Massachusettus being represented, he cares about having a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. The Democrats stuck the 2004 election provision in because they didn't want Mitt Romney a Republican governor making an appointment if John Kerry won the presidency. But now that a Democrat is governor they want appointments and not elections. How transparently partisan and undemocratic.
You really do have to laugh. It happens in both red and blue states, as noted above,and it's one of those cases where people have no shame once they make it into office. But as long as they follow the “letter of the law” there is really not much to say about it, no matter how much of an embarrassment it will look like to outside observers. Nothing changes the fact that there was “no hurry” to have two Senators when a Republican was in the Gov's mansion but it's a matter of critical light speed when it's a Democrat. They may as well just get it over with and pass a law saying that interim appointments are required only if the Governor is a Democrat and elections must be held (economic conditions be damned) if it's a Republican.
Look for something similar in New York after next year, when it looks like David Patterson will get unceremoniously booted out of office. We'll be losing a House seat on the next census count, and the Democrats are already setting up to gerrymander Pete King out of his seat. If Taxachusettes does this, it' not much of a stretch to think New York's most dysfunctional state govt. in the nation will pass similar laws, particularly if Kirsten Gillibrand doesn't hold on to Hillary's old seat.
“New York's most dysfunctional state govt. in the nation “
Not to detract from your point, Jazz, but I have to question your imperial displacement of California for this title.
:->
“I have to question your imperial displacement of California for this title.“
I stand (or sit) admonished. But I'll put us in the top (or bottom) five for a two dollar bet with anyone. Our state budget record alone (which even the flushing away of most of our “stimulus” money couldn't patch over) should earn us a seat near the head of that table.
Polimom: I grew up in California and later spent several years there before beginning to move and live throughout the rest of the nation.
While California's notorious “Massachusetts Lite” politics in Sacramento and other silly liberalism has sullied its reputation (and not only drove people and jobs out of the state, but nearly bankrupted it), the advantage California holds over other states is that at least it's more modern and vital than other Blue Nation (Cyanide Nation) states who are in decline and who have older, worse political traditions.
That includes New York, whose principal city not only was at the forefront of liberalism and which chose through liberal politics and policy to bankrupt itself way back in the mid-1970s, but whose government in Albany is legendary for its poor behavior and for association with the word “dysfunctional.” My stay for a couple of years in Upstate New York was quite revealing — municipalities that were true ghost towns, but looked worse than if they were fully abandoned, with horrible dinosaur Democratic government, various little governments with jostling interest groups and cliques who ran them as little fiefsdoms, and once again, then there is Albany, complete with the conceited monument to government (so alien to the real America) that it's the nation's best approximation to a Communist monument to accompany all that dysfunctionality:
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/empiresp/emp…
http://www.pps.org/great_public_spaces/one?publ…
http://www.lofaber.com/albany/essaymaking.html
All that's missing there is a statue there of Lenin, soliciting a bribe from one person, while taking a bribe at the same time, from another.
“We'll be losing a House seat on the next census count, and the Democrats are already setting up to gerrymander Pete King out of his seat.”
Will Washington take advantage of the next Census (leaving aside any question of manipulation of its final results by ACORN or other volunteers) and rationalize the various Congressional districts, to make them approximately equal in size and forming them with sets of contiguous Census districts, assigning them by sensible, rational means such as corresponding political boundaries like county boundaries, or large physical things like watershed boundaries or river channels?
(No.)
“New York's most dysfunctional state govt. in the nation “
Can any state bordering New Jersey make that claim with a straight face?
LOL, Jazz! I freely concede your deserved place at the table. Perhaps it should be round. (and I'll back your bet against anybody you manage to find…)
–[politics in Sacramento and other silly liberalism has sullied its reputation]–
Speaking of sullied reputations, where is G Dubya nowadays? Can't mention sullied without mentioning the most sullied of the sullied.
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“That’s okay because most voters in Massachusetts would probably concur based on that state’s track record.”
That's okay to rewrite the law as a special favor? Because voters would “probably concur.” Doesn't seem to be “okay” to me. Let's just start handing out Senatorships because if we went to the trouble of actually having an election it seems to us the result we want would “probably” happen.
“But, don’t blame good, old lovable Teddy.” Perhaps you were struggling for the sardonic and missed here, but the way I see it Teddy is the one who's making this some sort of deathbed wish.
I can appreciate that as he sees the shades of his true legacy closing in on him, but it really isn't the American way, is it?
” Can't mention sullied without mentioning the most sullied of the sullied.”
Thats funny Father Time but although I despised Bush there were much worse, and I didn't see you mention Rod Blagojevich.
DLS, that was sarcasm to illustrate the folly of what is going on. Of course that is not the way to handle this matter, yet that is basically what is being proposed.
We can only hope that legislators would create a system of FAIR laws that we could all work within, no matter our political persuasions.
With Kennedy and the Massachusetts legislature, we see rather the petty lawmaking of daily political expediency.
PS. to johnmgrant about the last Texas redistricting (2003). Please study up on the Texas Democrats redistricting of 1991. It was more partisan than the Republicans 2003 redistricting. But you do give another example of political expediency trumping even-handed lawmaking.
Wow, Father_Time are you seriously that brainwashed by politics that you can't see what they're doing? It is entirely undemocratic and unconstitutional for the legislature to take the majority and then write/change all of the laws to keep themselves in power. This is EXACTLY what they're doing in Massachusetts. I am no republican and think both of the parties have some serious corruption, but why do you have such a hard time understanding what the constitution was designed to prevent and how these people are blatantly tearing it to shreds in that state. If they honestly get away with this I seriously feel sorry for the folks living there but if they want to put up with a monarchy in their state without outrage I guess they deserve one. Brainless Massachusetts sheep actually falling for this blatant takeover by a political party… you're right about one thing…. “Nothing abnormal here”.