http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_kennedy_successor_gop
It is my understand that it takes 90 days for a Mass. law to become effective except in the case of an “emergency”. What was the emergency here? “Help! Help! We need a filibuster-proof majority for health care reform!”?
Seems pretty feeble to me…
The MA legislature decided to go back on there change to the law that would have prevented Mitt Romney from being able to appoint someone. MA is effectively a single party state. We did not want the possibility of a republican representing us. It’s not really fair the way we manipulated the system, but then again it wouldn’t have been very fair to let Mitt put someone in office the people of the state wouldn’t want.
Kirk will be able to represent us for approx 14 days in the senate before the special election chooses a new senator.
Is this hyperbole? He is in until January, no?
Losing elections has consequences.
Now we just need the Republicans to appoint Spock…
Like if that will happen, Republicans nowadays would appoint a Ferengi like Glenn Beck. 
Yes but when you take into account the senate breaks and weekends over the next few months there isn’t much time actually spent in the senate.
As I pointed out in a recent thread, every 12 minutes someone in the U.S.A dies from lack of access to healthcare. This is the equivalent of September 11 every 25 days.
So, yeah, it actually is an emergency. It may not psychologically feel as urgent because this problem has been around a long time, the people are spread around throughout the country instead of all happening in one place, and it’s not as terrifying a visual as airplanes crashing into skyscrapers, but those people are just as needlessly dead as 9/11 victims and delay will increase the body count.
Clearly, Massachusetts isn’t completely a single-party state, or Romney would never have been elected in the first place. When the voters of the state elected him, they knew that he’d have the power to appoint a replacement senator, and if that possibility troubled them, they should have elected somebody else. I recognize that the Massachusetts legislature acted legally then and now, but it’s still a kind of sleazy move, and I wouldn’t mind at all seeing laws passed that made such a move impossible in the future.
Eh? When they elected their representatives to the legislature, they knew they’d have their power to empower the governor to fill vacancies or not. If they really wanted Romney to have that power, they would’ve had to give him a legislature that wouldn’t vote to take away that power.
The Constitution specifically allows state legislatures to empower or not empower their governors to fill vacant seats. It doesn’t say or even imply that they can’t change back and forth depending on the party of the governor involved. I don’t really have any problem with them exercising that power, and don’t really see anything sleazy about it.
More on the judge’s decision here:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/09/judge_to_rule_b.html
It doesn’t bother me that Governor Patrick was allowed to appoint a replacement, what bothers me is that Ted Kennedy’s wife and kids felt it was their place to make a recommendation for Kirk and Patrick went along with it. Before they spoke up everyone was looking at Mike Dukakis. I know nothing about Kirk and he may not be a bad choice but the Kennedy meddling burned me up. It really looks like Patrick just gave in to them, though there was some talk that somehow Kirk would help retain Kennedy’s staff.
For what it’s worth, a Boston Globe survey asking “Is Paul G. Kirk, Jr. the governor’s best choice for interim US senator?” is currently about 60-40 in favor of Kirk.
You can make the same argument about gerrymandering. The people knew that they were giving their Republican/Democratic legislature the power to redraw districts to make a stronger Republican/Democratic legislature.
It’s legal, but it’s still a sleazy move regardless of who does it.
Ultimately we all die from how resources are allocated, are we in permanent emergency?
Blithering idiot…
I was just going to say that the OP title would make a hell of a movie for the new Trek reboot!
You know, they should have laws in place that lay out how and when a Senator is to be replaced, so when it happens one side can’t game the system.
Oh wait, they do have laws in place. Leave it to the Kennedy’s to make a mockery of it.
As i said, losing elections has consequences. I certainly didn’t hear this outrage from conservatives when Republicans held all the chips and ratfucked the country. I am not going to apologize for it now.
That line works with things like Supreme Court nominations, and I agree with it. But you don’t expect one side to cheat and simply make shit up. You want to associate yourself with such behavior? Enjoy.
Sorry, your appeal to liberal guilt won’t work. I am a partisan, and I think it is about time Democrats grow a spine, and keep our foot on the collective conservative throat until they stop thrashing around. They would not hesitate to do the same or worse, were the situation reversed. Welcome to the jungle.
So when the state legislature decides that the state should have a dead Senator replaced as soon as practical, but that the will of the people should also be heard as soon as is practical, that’s cheating and making shit up?
It’s all pretty subjective, isn’t it? Any measures for natural disaster relief would also be a matter of “resource allocation”, but nobody would complain about it not being an emergency, would they? I don’t see any meaningful distinction.
Unless there’s a particularly narrow definition within the Massachusetts Constitution defining what an emergency is (I’m no expert on MA law), they seem to be perfectly within their authority to call a special session on this matter.
