First of all, let’s hope he recovers. I’m sure his family must be going through a very difficult time. If he doesn’t, then the SD Supreme Court has their hands full.
No, the Governor is not ethically obligated to pick a Democrat, nor would he do so. That’s the breaks of the game. On the bright side, if such a thing occurs and the Republicans take control, the Dems can tell Lieberman to go suck eggs.
What if the Gov thought that he acquired his seat by, let’s just say… voter fraud on Indian Reservations, would he then have an ethical responsibility to appoint a Republican?
I think the Republican governor is under no obligation to pick a Republican. However, if this should happen, I think there would be an interesting scenario where one of the Maine Republicans would consider pulling a Jeffords and becoming independent and returning control with the Dems. Collins or Snowe could name their price and still easily be reelected as an independent.
So the precedent seems to be that there’s no vacancy unless Johnson dies or resigns, or perhaps if the Senate, using its powers under Article I, Section 5 to determine the qualifications for its own membership, decides to declare him unqualified due to incapacitation.
But since the Senate, minus Johnson, is 50-49 Dem (assuming Lieberman take advantage of the moment), they would probably feel forced to do that only if Johnson’s incapacitation were clearly permanent.
I don’t understand the logic here. Yes the voters spoke, they elected a Republican governor. If they wanted the Democrat then they should have elected him. There is absolutely no ethical responsibility for the governor to appoint a democrat. It is his ethical responibility to fill that seat with the most quailfied person he can find. As a republican I would assume that someone who thinks along the same lines as him would fit the bill. The voters elected the governor because they trusted his judgement. It’s up to him to meet those responibilities.
They didn’t vote for democrat. They voted for Johnson. If he is not available the governor should appoint who he thinks is best for the job. The voters have spoken, they gave someone the reponsibility to make that decision. In this case they gave it to a republican.
Thinks…or has iron clad proof? If the gov KNOWS the election was stolen, then his ethical responsibility is to do what he thinks is best…to appoint the best candidate to the best of his abilities.
Well, YMMV. For my part I think that ETHICALLY, a gov in this position should choose what s/he consideres the best candidate from a list of candidates from the party the senator originally came from. Surely there is SOMEONE from the opposing party a gov. could respect and select?
We are talking ethics here…not political reality, or the responsiblity of the gov to his party. If the home folks chose a Democrat (or a Republican) then I think ETHICALLY the gov should attempt to choose a new candidate from a selection of people from that original party.
Agreed. And isn’t this “appointment by Governor” wrinkle rather like the Electoral College, a remnant of an earlier time when elections were vastly more burdensome and complicated? My understanding is that S. Dak has roads, telephones, and even some internet tubes!
That said, if the SD Gov takes one for the Party by appointing a Pubbie, he must be expecting a rather fulsome political payback. SD voters are fiesty and unpredictable, they may very well resent having their judgement “overturned” for partisan reasons. And he would be well advised to consider the case of Katherine Harris…
One possible scenario, in the event that Johnson should prove to be permanently too incapacitated to serve:
The Senate Dems (still in a 50-49 majority, with the right to determine Senatorial qualifications) could do a straightforward deal with the SD Gov: vote to declare a vacancy only if the Gov agreed to appoint Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-SD) to Sen. Johnson’s seat. That would keep the Senate in Dem hands, but give the GOP a shot at SD’s sole House seat as a consolation prize.
Well, if the people of South Dakota wanted a replacement Senator to be of the same party, they were free to require such (as is the case in Alaska, Arizona and Hawaii). The exact same proposal made here, to have the replacement chosen from a list generated by the replaced Senator’s party, is employed in Utah and Wyoming. Alternatively, they could have required an immediate special election with no interim appointment (Oregon and Wisconsin). Cite. (PDF)
The Seventeenth Amendment gives state legislatures vast leeway to set the conditions for how an unexpected Senate vacancy will be filled – or if it will be filled at all. South Dakotans, through their elected representatives in the state legislature, chose to give the governor full discretion in how to make that appointment. You can certainly still argue that the Governor is ethically obliged to appoint a Democrat, but I think that position loses some steam when the legislature could have made it a requirement and failed to do so.
I personally think it’s silly to read much intent into a failure to anticipate all consequences of a rarely-occuring situation when writing legislation to deal with it.
Not only do Senate seats rarely have mid-term vacancies, but it really wouldn’t matter nearly as much to anyone if the SD Gov replaced Johnson with a Republican if the incoming Dems didn’t have a 51-49 majority. I doubt the SD Legislature had this possibility foremost in their minds when they were rewriting this part of the state code back in 1979.
The governor can ethically appoint anyone of any party, as long as the governor feels the person is qualified for the position.
And the contention that the SD legislature WOULD have put a provision that the governor must choose a member of the incapacitated senator’s party, if only they had thought of it, is simply ludicrous. Several states have such a provision.
By South Dakota law, the governor can choose who he likes, and his sole responsibility is to his own constituents.