Friday, August 28, 2009

Somedays I'm glad I live in SC

We in SC have our political problems. A governor who won't resign. He's being pushed by the Lt. Governor and state legislators and they are in his own party. Some (most?) of the pushing is politically motivated and based on old problems.

But at least I don't live in Massachusetts. With the passing of Sen. Kennedy, there's now an open Senate seat. In most states, the governor would simply appoint someone to fill the seat and everyone would move on. But back in 2004, the now deceased Sen. Kennedy pushed for the state to create new legislation that would require a special election for empty seats.

Back in 2004, Mitt Romney (a Republican) was governor. John Kerry (a Democrat) was running for president and everyone thought he would be elected. This would have left his seat empty and Romney might have appointed a non-Democrat for the seat. So, Kennedy pushed for a change in the law.

Fast forward five years and the table is now reversed. There's a Democratic governor who, if the law allowed, could appoint a Democrat to be Kennedy's replacement. Instead, by current law, a special election must be held and the state will have to go with only one senator for 4-5 months.

Of course, my way of thinking is that this isn't such a bad thing. Sen. Kennedy was very ill most of this year and hasn't been able to do much with the seat. So what will be different? But to alleviate that issue, Sen. Kennedy last week sent a letter, encouraging them to change the law (again).

Isn't it great when politicians change the law to fit their parties needs? It makes me so anxious for the new health care, knowing that they can change things when they feel like it...

2 comments:

David said...

There's just a few problems.

1.) They aren't trying to go back to the old system. The proposal is to appoint an interim senator until there is a special election in a few months.

2.) By the time this does work it's way through the legislature (even with clear support) it won't make much difference in this case.

Randy said...

David,
Thanks for the clarification. And that's better how?

It's still an single group of legislators changing the law to help out their party.

The other party should use this in the next several elections.

And I'm still glad I'm not in Massachusetts.