I’m not making a both-sides argument. I explicitly acknowledged that political violence from the right is a way bigger problem.
I am concerned with political violence in this country, but this thread is about new legislation in Kentucky. And I don’t think that it’s the cornerstone of a solution, but I think it’s a step in the right direction. I think that every state should make a change like this because I think it’s a good change that will reduce possible political violence. There are Democratic Senators from states with Republican governors who are under much greater threat than McConnell is.
I’m under no illusions that Kentucky is making this change for any reason other than because the Republican legislature can help keep Republicans in the Senate in power. But I don’t vote for anybody in Kentucky, I’m just having opinions on the internet.
I shouldn’t have said it was, since I don’t actually know the history of that. I do believe that it’s a bad idea to have the runner-up be VP for that reason among many others. Thanks for the history lesson.
I could certainly be wrong about this, but I don’t think we should count on right-wing militias to not figure out how succession rules work. I am skeptical that anyone has enough information to make great threat assessments about this, and even more skeptical that it would be publicly released if it existed.
Since, as you say, this thread is about new legislation in Kentucky, I’m not really worried about what’s going to happen if the right-wing militias figure out that they could get a left-wing senator by killing Mitch.
If one’s preferred candidate takes office when you eliminate the incumbent, then there is a non-zero incentive for eliminating the incumbent.
Whether that incentive is significant enough to change laws is another question.
I see two ways of looking at it.
The people chose a member of Party A for Senate, so that person should be replaced by a member of Party A.
The people chose a Governor to make important decisions on behalf of the State. The replacement should be chosen by the Governor.
Why not both?
I think a reasonable compromise is what DesertDog said. The Governor picks, but the selection must be a member of the same party as the eliminated Senator.
No. Loughner is mentally ill - paranoid schizophrenia* - and hates women. He’d’ve shot a Republican woman, too.
*The news here reported that it wasn’t until his sentencing in August of 2012 that he finally was aware enough to understand that he hadn’t killed Gabby.
The violence issue is interesting, but Senators die or otherwise leave office for all kinds of reasons and it’s good to have a plan to replace them too. This is a pretty standard-issue good government reform that many states have adopted. It’s actually not a good idea to permit potentially huge swings in the balance of power nationwide based on (A) the partisan affiliation of a random chief executive responsible for some state agencies or (B) an ultra-low turnout election on a date where people aren’t used to voting. (Kentucky, in its infinite wisdom, combines the two of these by electing its governor in an odd year in which 42% is stunning record turnout.) The “I vote for a PERSON, not a PARTY” people will be put out, I’m sure, but they don’t really seem to know whether they’re coming or going anyways, and the appointee will still be a person.
I’m not a fan of off-cycle special elections for the House either, but 1/435 is much smaller than 1/100, and in any case it’s constitutionally-mandated, so whatever.
Well, gosh, the comment that was in response to wasn’t precisely on thread topic. Do you actually misunderstand my point (I can clarify) or are you just trying really hard to misconstrue it?
The comment I was responding to directly referenced the new legislation in Kentucky - that verbiage was a direct quote. And I’m pretty sure your point is that you think this legislative change is justified because you think (against all evidence) that the current state of affairs is extraordinarily dangerous, because (against all evidence) liberals are super-guaranteed to murder Mitch if it’s not changed, er, thirty years ago.
Ah, ok, there is a misunderstanding, and at least partly on my part (I interpreted Kimstu’s comment as focusing on Democratic Senators as some others were, but that’s not true). I’m going to try again.
I think this legislative change is a good one because I think the threat of political assassination is not, as you said “extraordinarily dangerous” but nonzero, and this is a change that reduces it. I agree that the threat to Kentucky Senators at this time is probably lower than the threat to Democratic Senators right now, but I think every state should pass laws like this. Let Kentucky be the model for fixing a system that currently incentivizes political violence by giving potential assassins direct political gains.
Just two months ago a mob directly threatened the US Senate. Political violence and assassinations are a real thing. I agree that there’s no direct evidence that there are groups specifically targeting Senators that could be replaced with a member of another party, but I don’t think we should necessarily wait for such evidence, since there’s a substantial possibility that that evidence would come in the form of a dead Senator.
People respond to incentives, and when you notice that a system has bad incentives, it’s sometimes better to fix them than wait for someone to exploit them, especially if the consequences of exploiting them are particularly bad, as they would be in this case.
We can be quite certain that the conservatives aren’t doing this because they believe the current system incentivizes their murder. They’re doing it because they want to retain their grip on power via every dubious legislative approach available. This is not something we should support.
I’m not convinced the risk to anyone’s lives is significant enough to worry about - or at least, I don’t think that the current senator-replacement situation detectably increases it. The current round of traitors are driven by hate and stupidity; if they’re targeting democratic leaders it’ll be because they’re democratic leaders who have done something that offends the stupids, not because of Machiavellian consideration of what will happen after the fourth domino falls.
I did acknowledge that, and I’m mostly ok with it. Lots of legislation is motived in whole or in part by power-grabs or cynicism. I think the actual change is a good one, despite their motives not being good.
To follow this analogy, there’s literally only one domino involved.
Which is still far more planning ability than we’ve seen out of these yahoos so far.
(Speaking specifically about Trump and his Trumpist goon squad. The actual republican politicians plan far ahead, but I don’t think even they could get away with openly calling a hit on their co-workers via hinting that they would be replaced by pubs if killed.)
A slight modification of this sort of law, which I think would be better and something that we could generally agree on, is that the new appointment procedure would not be in effect until after the next election for all positions involved.
I think you can make a good argument that Kentuckians elected this governor and legislature with the set of powers that they had at election time, and if you’re going to change those, then you wait for an election cycle so that people have a chance to elect new people for whatever the new powers are.
Sure, but I think that it’s foolish to assume that it’s the only planning we’re going to see. I think an important takeaway from the last few years should be “imagine how much damage competent authoritarians and fringe groups could do.” And we shouldn’t wait for them to exist to plug the holes in our institutions.
How about that this law is only applicable to senators that have died. Prevents a motive for assassination, and prevents a cynical governor from capitalizing on a tragedy.
If one resigns, or is removed from office, then there really is no reason to honor the party they came from.
I don’t think there’s no reason to do it. I think many people vote for a particular party. That doesn’t mean that it should be the only consideration, but I think it’s reasonable for it to be a consideration.
My reasoning is that resignation or removal from office usually comes on the heels of doing something objectionable. If a person does something objectionable, then I don’t know that their party should be rewarded for it.
Also, I don’t know that I really like the idea of a senator resigning with a year left so that their hand picked successor can run as an incumbent.
Personally, I think that it should go to a special election in the case of resignation or removal. The unexpected death or assassination of a senator should be treated differently though, and I can see replacing them with someone from the party.