Alaska uses the same for a few positions. I favor it as well. Makes everyone happy or unhappy.
So what? I do not want to be fair to Republicans. They have never shown any fairness towards Democrats when they were in power, so we would be damned fools to start now. Tyranny by the majority isn’t the best form of government, but it is way ahead of whatever is in second place.
Well, you could just espouse ethical behavior, without worrying about exactly which kind of unethical behavior would most harm the people you dislike, but that’s certainly one way to go.
It’s hard not to be flippant, but seriously: in a viscious circle, *all *sides are culpable. “But they started it!” is a childish refrain which should be a grave embarrassment to any adult with two braincells to rub together.
I’m not sure you comprehend what it is you forsake by turning your back on the rule of law.
As long as it was legal, I really can’t imagine that I’d have much of a problem with an overwhelmingly Republican state doing something similar to replace a Republican senator with another Republican senator. If, say, Orrin Hatch were to drop dead tomorrow, I’m not going to get upset if the state makes sure that he’s replaced with someone similar. It’s not like that seat’s going to flip Blue any time soon.
Did anything illegal happen?
And what rule of law have I turned my back on? Hmmm?
Well, if he were to drop dead tomorrow most Democrats wouldn’t have a problem with it, as the Massachusetts affair is too obvious a counterpoint. If he’d dropped dead two years ago, on the other hand, liberals would scream bloody murder if Utah behaved as Massachusetts has. Can’t speak for you personally.
(Also note that this is a two stage affair: the MA legislature changed the rules to ensure the selection of a member of their own party, then changed them back when the new rules prevented them doing the same within a convenient amount of time. The first change is very distasteful, but at least there’s some plausible deniability: perhaps they thought the law truly ought to be different than it was, and exigent circumstances were merely the key to the timing. It’s the second change that makes this a transparent manipulation.)
“See, what we did was perfectly within the law . . . because we unilaterally changed the law that said what we wanted to do was illegal. When the new law becomes inconvenient for our party, we’ll have to unilaterally change it again. Oh, this bureaucracy is stifling us!”
Or: so you and **waterj **are satisfied with purely nominal adherence to the rule of law?
I don’t mean to overstate here; in the main, the MA legislature does not flout the rule of law, of course, and, in the grand scope of things, *this *is a relatively minor flouting. It’s still shameful behavior, however.
This is a Warning, reminding you to refrain froim direct personal insults in Great Debates.
[ /Moderating ]
They changed the rules to provide for a quick special election and to leave the seat vacant in the meantime. They now reversed only the second of those provisions, to re-allow a gubernatorial appointment for a shortened time period. There will still be an election in, I believe, Jan. 2010 for a Senator to fill out Kennedy’s term, rather than waiting until Nov. 2010 (I’m not sure whether the Senator elected in Jan. needs to be re-elected in Nov. as well). Paul Kirk has said he does not plan on running in the Jan. election.
The 2004 change would not have ensured the selection of a Democrat (except that one would be easily the favorite to win the election). The seat would have been vacant between Kerry’s resignation and the special election, a period of a few months (in the case that it would have been required, there would be a good two months left in Kerry’s term to prepare for the election before he would need to resign). I think the special election provision is a good one regardless. Massachusetts might not be swimming in cash, but I think the expense of an extra election every once in a long while is a reasonable one for the benefit of getting an elected Senator into office as soon as is practicable.
The 17th Amendment to the Constitution gives the state legislature the power to optionally grant the governor the ability to appoint a replacement. That is exactly what the Massachusetts legislature did.
I’m far more concerned with the end result. The stipulations of the Seventeenth Amendment were followed, the state was not left without representation in the Senate, a Senator was not appointed who would be likely to act contrary to the desires of his constituents, and the placeholder is someone widely accepted as a placeholder, to be replaced with a special election in January. I can’t really complain.
I am absolutely satisfied. The line must be drawn somewhere, you know. That we are the ones with the pencil is nice, though.
But my original point was this: It is fine for the Dems to change the law. That’s what winning the election means. However, in Mass. new laws don’t take effect for 90 days except in cases of “emergency”. I fail to see how adding a Dem to the U.S. Senate constitutes an “emergency”.
Utah already requires that a replacement Senator be of the same party as his or her predecessor, as do some other states.
While I agree that it is not good for a state to have a long vacancy in its Senate representation, I don’t see why Massachusetts couldn’t have passed such a law back when Romney was governor. It would be cleaner and neater. Oh! Wait . . . Massachusetts? Never mind.
Apparently, boating speed limits are emergencies. If a boating speed limit is an emergency, I’d say being without full representation in the Senate is. Remember, a qualifying word means exactly what a politician says it means, nothing more nor less.
It’s sausage, you know?
FWIW, this was debated in the Mass legislature, and ultimately rejected because they thought such a restriction would violate the state constitution.
I’m a Mass resident, unenrolled but generally conservative, and I think it’s sleazy. I’d think it was less sleazy if some of the Democratic leadership in the statehouse would just ADMIT that the 2004 legislation and this new legislation are being done purely for the advantage of the Democratic party. In 2004, they swore up and down that the new law had nothing to do with the fact that the governor was a Republican. It was done because the Senator should be selected by the people. This year, they’re swearing up and down the new law has nothing to do with the fact that the governor is a Democrat. It was done because Mass. needs two Senators to be properly represented. Don’t piss on my head and tell me it’s raining.
ETA: On the whole emergency thing - it takes a 2/3 majority in both houses for the legislature to declare a law an emergency and take effect immediately, so while the law itself passed, the emergency aspect was defeated - the votes were identical on both. So the governor used his own power to declare it an emergency.
If you look at what’s best for democracy, in terms of what the procedure should be regardless of the party in power, I don’t know of and haven’t seen a good argument that this latest law isn’t the best. The people instead of one of their hirelings get to choose who they want in the office, with enough time to get a good campaign done but not with too much time. Meanwhile they continue to get the job done without the Senate balance being changed by a chance event.
The 2004 vote, now that was partisan, no question. But no less than Romney’s appointment of a Republican replacement for Kerry would have been, hmm? If anything, it was to preempt another act of partisanship, but was done too hastily and left a loophole which is now fixed.