:rolleyes: The distinction being?
You remind me of a former Illinois governor, forget his name, who, discussing the state’s crime rates, gaffed, “Remember, Chicago skews the results” or words to that effect – implying that to a downstater like himself, Chicago was not really part of Illinois.
How about they hold an election for the seat?
It wouldn’t be a nomination, but an actual appointment.
For a college poli sci class I took, each student had to do a research project on some aspect of Congress. One of my friends wrote about governors who’d appointed themselves to U.S. Senate vacancies (yes, it’s happened). Almost without exception, they were defeated when they next went before the voters. Even popular governors are resented by voters for overambitious self-promotion like that.
I like what I’ve heard about Duckworth. EMILY’s List had some interesting info about her when she ran for the House.
As the first article state, under Illinois law the governor appoints a replacement who will serve until the end of the term to which Obama was elected (i.e. January of 2011).
Much as I love Tammy Duckworth, I was looking forward to her becoming my Representative in January. Mike Madigan would get rid of Blago’s biggest pain, but his daughter is younger, not an asshole, and if she would go back to wearing a bit of makeup so she has her Tina Fey thing going on instead of her current Sister Mary Joseph look I might go back to watching TV news.
Shallowness aside, I’d be happy to vote for either Tammy or Lisa. Note: Use of first names is not intended to belittle them as “mere women,” but for Duckworth it’s because she has a funny last name and I don’t want to confuse Madigan with her dad.
Replacement representatives are elected.
So are repacement senators. I would think that serving the rest of the term may not be considered temporary.
As a hijack. If I were a voter in Illinois, would I have standing to file a suit that an appointment filling out the rest of the term is not temporary? Would it make a difference if I filed papers (or a letter if papers are not available) with the state intending to run for the vacant seat?
To comment a little on this:
There have been three instances where a seat has been vacant in Illinois since the 17th Amendment: 1928 (when Frank L. Smith resigned after over a year of being denied his seat), 1939 (death of J. Hamilton Lewis), and 1969 (death of Everett Dirksen). In the later two cases, the special election to fill the seat didn’t occur until the following year, to time it to the next state election.
This is not atypical: To use my home state, the last two California vacancies to occur in non-normal election years (caused in 1945 by Hiram Johnson’s death and in 1991 by Pete Wilson becoming Governor) were not filled until the following year, and (to use a current example) a vacancy that occurred in Wyoming last year will not be filled until this year.
To make my point most clear: Delaying the special election for a Senate seat until the next year that an ordinary election will occur in a particular state is by no means unusual. It would be concurrent, this time around, with the election for the full six-year term due to timing, but that would not always be the case (the special elections for the Smith and Dirksen seats were for the remaining four years, and the one for the Lewis seat was for two years).
That’s a fascinating bit of history. If only the modern Senate had that much sense…
My question about temporary appointment sprung from this
Are you saying flurb is incorrect?
I know it’s our system, but it smacks of tyranny of the majority to me. Of course, if the majority happens to vote liberal democrat, that’s just fine with you. :rolleyes: yourself.
The one law I’ve found is this, from the Illinois Election Code
The problem is, I can’t seem to find (either in the Complied Statues or in the Illinois Constitution) the exact laws involving Senatorial appointments. Without that, I can’t fully answer the question.
“Tyranny of the majority”? Have you got some alternative to elections in mind?
But that’s just what it is, under the liberal mindset. To use a local example, why should the “representatives” in Springfield, largely elected by voters in Chicago, be able to decide that folks in Peoria or Decatur can’t smoke a cigarette in a bar?
This isn’t a Liberal mindset, its a republican (small r) mindset – that’s how our republic works, and has for a pretty long time. But keep reading, you do have some options.
In Illinois, a constitutional convention can be called every 20 years, if enough voters cast votes to do so. A constitutional convention has happened five times in Illinois since the Illinois constitution was ratified in 1818, the last time in 1970. And, by luck, 2008 happens to be the year when the question will be put on the ballot to hold a constitution convention in Illinois! You and like minded people can vote to change the Illinois constitution this very fall, on November 4, 2008, if enough people vote the same way.
If you have a problem with the Illinois constitution, you can either change it or move to another state. If you have a problem with how the US and Illinois constitution works, you can either amend it, or move to another country that works differently. If you have a problem with representative democracy, I submit that what we have in the U.S. works much better than the available alternatives.
Or as Churchill once said (paraphrased), “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.”
That is simply a result of the urban and rural areas being part of the same state (the state, in the American system, being in effect the default level of government for all decisions and functions not specifically allocated to the federal or local level). You have some objection to that? Want to redraw the state boundaries? Make Chicagoland a separate state? Or do you merely want Illinois government to be more decentralized and local-autonomous?
In the latter case, of course, Chicago-area voters still would hold the balance of power in electing Illinois’ U.S. senators.
Ah yes, the old “change the Constituion or move” argument. I realize that smoking laws were probably the worst example I could have chosen, but, if only 20% of the population smokes, and a law forbids it, how is that NOT a tyranny of the majority?
Still don’t get where you’re coming from. By that standard practically any law would be an instance of “tyranny of the majority.”
I was mostly baffled that you consider this a “liberal mindset” – democracy is a liberal mindset? I was also pointing out that you do have options (other than moving) under the current setup.
Or you could move to *Chicagoland, and then that smoking law is all your fault for moving to a majority area. 
*I thought Carol Stream was a Chicago suburb (I assume your user name tells me that that’s where you live), so aren’t you already in Chicagoland? Or maybe you mean Cook County is the cut-off? I haven’t lived there in 20 years, so I’m really not sure where the Tyranny part of the state ends and the Oppressed part begins.
Democracy IS a liberal mindset. The Constitution is one of the great cornerstones of Western liberal philosophy. The conservatives at the time were supporting King George.