Sen. Johnson, (D-SD) had a stroke today. At least, he’s in the hospital having tests run on him with the assumption that it was a stroke. If he does die or step down from office, the governer of South Dakota will pick his replacement. And the governer of South Dakota is a Republican, and will presumably pick a Republican to replace Sen. Johnson.
Does anyone know the exact laws here? Does he merely have to make it to his own swearing-in for the 110th Congress? Can he appoint his own replacement if he’s in good enough shape to do that? How exactly does that work out?
Just wondering. There was no provision here for such a requirement until the constitutional crisis of 1975. After that Australians voted overwhelmingly at a referendum to change the constitution to require that a state governor appoint a replacement senator of the same political party of the one who has died/resigned.
If Senator Johnson is unable to swear his oath of office, then is he S.O.L. as far as being a senator is concerned, or will they fake it and pretend that he swore his oath?
This is assuming that he doesn’t pre-emptively resign (or whatever the term is) because of health reasons.
Looks like that’s not the case here. Further research reveals Karl Mundt, a Republican Senator who had a stroke and could not attend Congress for the last three years of his term. Apparently he just stuck it out and was stripped of his committee assignments. If that’s the precedent, maybe Johnson would have to actually die for the governer to replace him. If he’s in poor enough shape that he can’t vote, then the Senate is split 49-50, and the Democrats retain the majority.
That might be a fascinating question about a newly elected legislator, but Johnson was in the middle of his elected term. He took his oath of office four years ago.
By the way, this story spread all over Capitol Hill even before the major news organizations picked up on it. Our Washington office emailed us with the news 10 minutes before CNN reported it.
According to the word on Hardball neither the S. Dak. nor federal laws call for the replacement of an incapacitated Senator. As long as Johnson is alive, he remains the Senator from S. Dak.