I am proud to report that on Thursday our Groton Democratic Town Committee passed a resolution calling on our state legislators to require a special election in the case of a Senatorial vacancy. Based on the feedback we’ve gotten from some of those legislators there is no chance that our veto proof majority will pass such a statute because:
1. A couple of state legislators who plan to run for governor don’t want their own wings clipped, in the unlikely event they get elected; and because;
2. It wouldn’t “look good” for the Democrats to engage in such a raw exercise of political power, because it might look like an exercise of political power. Apparently it would be tacky to take advantage of political power. They’ll leave that to the governor.
Thus we see that our state legislature is pretty much the same as our national legislature: victims of the battered legislator’s syndrome. We see it in this morning’s Courant, where the Democrats whine about the fact that Jodi Rell is calling them soft on crime for not passing a “three strikes” law which has proven unworkable everywhere it has been tried. We see it in our national legislature, where Harry Reid is in the pre-cave stage on the FISA debate.
The Kennedys were reputed to live by a “Don’t get mad, get even”, code of conduct. That’s something that the Democrats here in Connecticut should consider whenever Rell engages in this type of political hit job. They have the power to hit her back where it hurts, but they have to be willing to do so. Instead they whine, and worry about whether they will “look good”, which they never do, since no one looks that good when they’re on their knees.
Republicans, on the other hand, don’t seem to care about whether they “look good”. In the U.S. Senate they are engaged in an exercise in raw political gamesmanship, threatening to filibuster any amendment to the FISA bill so that George Bush can excoriate the Democrats during the State of the Union address. Harry Reid appears to be maybe, finally, timidly learning that the proper response is to fight back, but unfortunately his method of “fighting” retains too much of the whine to do much good. He doesn’t understand that most of the country has long since accepted the fact that George Bush is a congenital liar, so no one would really be shocked, more likely they’d be pleasantly surprised, if Reid simply said that George Bush is lying about the FISA bill and he’s demanding telecom immunity only to make sure he can cover up his own criminal behavior. Not only would that constitute a bit of push back, but it’s the truth.
I’d say there’s a 90% chance that Reid will find some way to cave and give Bush what he wants. Here in Connecticut, the legislature will continue to get whipsawed by a third rate governor. Lucky for them, on the “three strikes” issue, they’ll likely find that it’s an issue about which voters will show more maturity than the politicians or the press.
UPDATE: A commenter asks if I have the language for the resolution. I actually drafted the resolution, but all the inflammatory stuff I put in about Lieberman was removed, as well as a lot of other whereases, so it’s now definitely the work of a committee. It reads as follows:
Whereas, Connecticut law currently provides that if a
U.S. Senate seat becomes vacant the Governor selects a
replacement who serves until the next federal election
and
Whereas, no person, not even the Governor should have
the power to select the person who will represent over
two million citizens of the State of Connecticut in
the United States Senate;
Now, therefore, we, the Groton Democratic Town
Committee, urge our legislators in the Connecticut
House of Representatives and the Connecticut Senate to
use their veto proof majority to amend Connecticut law
to provide that U.S. Senate vacancies shall be filled
by special election.
UPDATE TWO: In view of the comments below, I should add that the Town Committee also cut language (the “other whereases” to which I referred) about the possibility of Dodd leaving the Senate from the resolution. In my own view, he would be an ideal VP choice if Obama got the nomination, and he could certainly ably fill a top Cabinet position. While I admire and respect Andy Maynard, I respectfully disagree that now is not the time to do this. Not only is it the right thing to do, but there will never come a time when it is done except when the sitting governor is a member of the party in the minority in the legislature. It will always draw charges that it is politically motivated. Almost everything Rell does is politically motivated (witness the ‘soft on crime’ stuff referenced in the post), and it hasn’t seemed to hurt her at all.
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Do you have the language of this, actually? I was hoping to draft one myself, but have sort of been spinning my wheels on it
With the removal of the inflammatory Lieberman references, satisying as they may be to compose, the resolution correctly focuses attention on the legitimate underlying democratic principle in question: Should the Governor have the sole authority to fill a vacancy for a U.S. Senate seat?
Put in that context the question become one of democratic principle not partisan maneuvering.
The difficulty in raising the issue in the current political environment is that the public may ask, “Why is this suddenly such an important issue?”
Speaking as one of the aforementioned spineless dems, I’m not sure….
“Because we hate Lieberman and we think John McCain might be elected President and appoint him to his cabinet so we are changing the law before Jodi Rell has a chance to replace him with a Republican”
quite cuts it.
Obviously, one can answer the question differently but if this is the impetus and we were to be successful in an over-ride, would we not simply be doing the very thing we rail against our opponents for doing?
There is a time and a place for political battle….I’m not convinced this is it.
It’s not just about Lieberman, in fact, it’s more likely that Dodd will leave us–to be a VP candidate or a cabinet post in an Obama or a Clinton administration. In a state as blue as CT, it would be wrong to have a Republican U.S. Senator. There’s too much at stake. What if there’s a crucial vote on global warming, and it fails by one vote. This affects the whole world.
I fully agree that the law should be changed and will bring it to the appropriate committee chair to see if we can get it done as a raised bill this session. Individual legislators cannot submit non-budgetary legislation in the short session.
It is probably inevitable that charges of partisan politics will be hurled and questions of why this was never raised before will arise.
Perhaps we simply need to make the change because it is the right thing to do and let the chips fall where they may.
The 17th Amendment contains a clause allowing States to have direct elections for vacancies, but also allowing the governor to make an appointment. Oregon (Or. Rev. Stat. §188.120), Wisconsin (Wis. Stat. § 17.18) and Oklahoma (Okla. Stat. tit. 26, §12-101) now require direct election of Senators for vacancies. Alaska (Alaska Stat. §15.40.010), Arizona (Ariz. Rev. Stat. §16.222) and Hawaii (Haw. Rev. Stat. § 17-1) require the Governor appoint from the same party as the resigning Senator.
If a member of Congress leaves office we would get to vote (see U.S. Const. Article I, Section 2, clause 4), or if a member of the CT General Assembly vacates a seat we would get to vote on the replacement, (CGS § 9-215) there is no logical reason why voters don’t have the same power with a Senator.
I did not realize that it was only the Senate seat the Governor filled. That’s ridiculous. We can vote for a new Congressperson or local State rep but not our US Senator? The reason this has not come up before is because many people don’t even realize it. My answer to Senator Maynard is the best reason to bring up changing this law is that the people in your district want it done. Now the next step is to get other Democratic committees across the State to do the same. With enough of the public saying they want it done, then it will become an issue our senators and representatives will hopefully respond to. I will happily send emails to all the Committee Chairs asking them to pass the same resolution.