In 1992, Representative Jeff Johnson met an untimely demise while giving his secretary an demonstration of the ins and outs of Congress. Representative Johnson was succeeded in office by Jeff Johnson who… wait, what? Didn’t he die? How did a dead man replace himself in office?
Let’s walk this back. Congressman Jeff Johnson, the deceased, looked a lot like Jim Rockford, that PI who lived in Malibu back in the 1970s. His successor, Thomas Jefferson Johnson, looked like the Detroit cop Axel Foley, who busted up crime rings in LA in the mid-1980s. Mr. Johnson decided to go by his middle name in order to appeal to Mr. Johnson’s voters.
Well, life imitates movies that gross $47 million at the box office, so Bob Stump of Arizona is running to take the seat once held by Bob Stump of Arizona, and Bob Stump’s widow is not happy about it. Meanwhile, Bob Stump’s mother is telling Bob Stump’s widow to cram it. Uh, maybe this will help.
So what are the obligations of a candidate for office who is possibly, probably, or definitely using the name of a popular politician to better his chances at the ballot box?
In my view, if this is a matter of nicknames and so forth, a candidate has zero responsibility to set the record straight. But if someone were to change his legal name to fool voters, I would sure hope that voters learn about the ruse and punish him at the polls.
In the UK in 1982, the death of Tam Galbraith (Conservative) caused a by-election in the Scottish constituency of Glasgow Hillhead. A well-known ex-Labour Party government minister, Roy Jenkins, stood in the by-election on behalf of the newly founded Social Democratic Party. He was opposed, among others, by a candidate nominated by an entirely different (and older) Social Democratic Party, one Roy Jenkins, who until changing his name by deed poll some days before nomination had been known as Douglas Parkin.
The new SDP took the matter to court, claiming that the change of name was an attempt to confuse people and a corrupt practice under UK electoral law. The court did not agree. The candidates appeared on the ballot paper as “The Rt. Hon. R. H. Jenkins (SDP)” (for the ex-Labour politician, who was a Right Honourable by virtue of being a member of the Privy Council) and “R. H. Jenkins (Ind SDP)” (for the former Douglas Parkin). There were six other candidates on the ballot paper. The two Jenkinses appeared side-by-side, since the names were ordered alphabetically - “fake” Jenkins in fourth spot, and “real” Jenkins in fifth.
Yup. He was pissed off because he felt the name of his party (founded in 1979, and tiny) had been assumed by the new party (founded in 1981, and attracting much attention).