Special Elections For All Vacant Senate Seats

by: Chris Bowers

Tue Dec 09, 2008 at 15:51


Dick Durbin states the obvious:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Tuesday called for a special Illinois election to fill President-elect Obama's Senate seat, instead of leaving it to arrested Gov. Rod Blagojevich.(...)

"If the allegations are proven true, he has clearly abused the public trust," Durbin said of Blagojevich. "I think the Illinois legislature should enact a law as quickly as possible calling for a special election to fill the Senate vacancy of Barack Obama. No appointment by this governor under these circumstances can produce a credible replacement."

There should be a special election to fill Obama's seat. One of the main reasons is, obviously, that no appointment could be made without a cloud of corruption surrounding it now.

But really, there should be a special election to fill all vacant Senate seats, not just this one. While there will be an undeniable whiff of corruption surrounding anyone Blagojevich picks at this point, there is an undeniable whiff of aristocracy surrounding our method to replace vacant Senate seats in general. Democracies elect people and vote on stuff. Monarchies and oligarchies appoint people and make decisions in small groups of elites. (And then they often make aristocratic appointments like Caroline Kennedy.)

Our Constitutional method of filling vacant Senate seats is a hold-over from a far more aristocratic version of the Senate. It was written back when Senators weren't even elected by popular vote. It's bad enough that states are granted Senate seats instead of people, thus leading to the embarrassment of our "democracy" where California (population 36,553,215) has as many Senators as Wyoming (population 522,830), where Vermont (population 621,254) has as many as neighboring New York (population 19,297,729), and Pennsylvania (population 12,432,792)  has as many as neighboring Delaware (population 864,764). Click here for more population figures.

That population discrepancy is bad enough, so let's stop compounding it by appointing Senators instead of electing them. If we want to export democracy around the world, let's start by improving democracy here at home.

Update: There will be a special election in Illinois. Good. Let the candidates run, and the electorate decide.

Chris Bowers :: Special Elections For All Vacant Senate Seats

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Special Elections For All Vacant Senate Seats | 53 comments
"It was written back when..." (0.00 / 0)
aren't both popular elections and governor's appointments in Amendment 17?  Anyway, any state legislature can deal with the problem.

I agree 100% with your point.

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

1912 was a much less Democratic time (0.00 / 0)
Back when women couldn't vote and Jim Crow ruled. It may spring from a more progressive era than the eighteenth century, but it's still a relic.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog
[ Parent ]
Blago won't be in his post for long! (0.00 / 0)
For one thing, he's going to want to plead to some kind of plea-bargain before he's sent up the river for about 15 years.

Do you think Fitzgerald will let him plea from the governors' mansion? He'll resign his post before long.

Then we'll have a new Governor and they can appoint the Senator. And THEN have a special election to fill the spot, whenever under Illinois law that is supposed to happen.

I'm not sure he'll take a plea (4.00 / 1)
It sounds like Blago has no defence. And punishing political corruption is always popular.

I don't see that Fitzgerald has any incentive to take the plea bargain.

Although Illinois politicians may have an incentive to quickly pass a recall measure.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
Illinois voters just overwhelmingly defeated (0.00 / 0)
proposals to hold a Constitutional Convention and to enable recall elections for state elected officials. I'm not sure the legislature can force a recall.
[ Parent ]
Impeachment the only recourse in IL (0.00 / 0)
I think the legislature has to impeach the governor if they want him out. Not that it'd be all that hard to do if this keeps up.

Karl in Drexel Hill, PA
[ Parent ]
What does (former) Gov. Blagojevich have to bargain with? (0.00 / 0)
Will he turn and start fingering those with which he has made deals in the past?

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
You also have to wonder (4.00 / 1)
whether this kind of quid-pro-quo isn't par for the course when these seats are vacant. Presumably other governors are substantially less blatant about it, but it wouldn't surprise me if the thing with Blagojevich was just a super-sized version of what goes on every time a governor has to appoint a Senator.
Eh. (0.00 / 0)
There was nothing in it for Bob Casey when he appointed his Secretary of Labor, Harris Wofford, upon John Heinz's death in 1991.  The only condition, from what I understand, was that Casey hoped Wofford would not vote for pro-choice legislation.
[ Parent ]
I agree with this statement: (4.00 / 1)
"It's bad enough that states are granted Senate seats instead of people"

Its a crying shame. Why can't we grant Wyoming more people? I can think of plenty of people I wouldn't mind sending to Wyoming. Does Obama know no shame? When will he fulfill the promises he made to build a Soylent Green-economy? WYOMING IS PEOPLE. THE HARD LEFT WILL NOT REST.

Seriously? (4.00 / 1)
You're seriously going to whine about one of the central compromises of our republic, the dual house legislature? Give me a break. California/NY/Florida get plenty of representation, by population, in the House of Representatives. The only way to make sure the needs of smaller states aren't totally ignored is through equal Senate representation.

I pray to God you weren't a political science major.

Yeah, stop whining (3.20 / 5)
People who live in New York and Florida are granted equal representation in one branch of Congress. How dare they whine about demanding equal representation you, know, in both.

Next, people might start demanding one person, one vote, or something. What will the world come to, then?

I also recall the Missouri compromise being important to the Republic at one point. I guess I'm not defending that because I wasn't a political science major.

[ Parent ]
As long as Americans (0.00 / 0)
didn't take to the streets after the 2000 election demanding an end to the Electoral College, I don't see much chance of them demanding equal representation in the Senate. We likes our royalism.

It still takes my breath away to remember that these 8 miserable years of American decline happened BECAUSE the Electoral College trumps the will of the people in America. This bad dream is the result of a royalist effort by the founders to make sure power remained in the hands of white male property owners no matter how the vote went. We just spent 8 years in hell because of our idiot clinging to that worthless holdover, and yet there's not a peep about not letting that happen ever again. I'll never understand this country.

[ Parent ]
Political science major? (3.43 / 7)
This is a normative issue, not an analytical one. You think there are no political scientists who don't like the Senate?

Yes, it's one of the "central compromises of our republic." It's also a compromise that was made a long time ago to deal with much different circumstances. The Senate is clearly an anachronism.

Realistically, is it going anywhere? Doubt it. But that doesn't mean we can't point out, once in a while, what a shame that is.

[ Parent ]
Troll rated? (4.00 / 4)
Are you kidding me?  
[ Parent ]
What needs (4.00 / 1)
do New York and Texas have in common that are diametrically different from the needs that Vermont and Wyoming have in common. It's long past time to get over the mythology that individuals in small states somehow need or deserve special clout in Congress.  
[ Parent ]
It was a central compromise 200 years ago (4.00 / 2)
Do we really still need to be appeasing Southern slave states any more?

This "totally ignored" line is just so much bullshit. Proper apportionment by population would leave Wyoming pretty ignored, but there's a good reason for that: it's got bugger all in the way of population and it has less need of the federal government's attention than major centres of population.

If it's got far fewer people, it needs less in the way of federal money (see also the Bridge to Nowhere) and it certainly doesn't need extra influence on questions like how the Foreign Intelligence Services Act should work or what the abortion laws should be.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
It had nothing to do with Southern slave states (4.00 / 1)
The Virginia Plan was the proposal to have proportional representation.  Note that Virginia is a Southern slave state.  The New Jersey Plan proposed a unicameral legislature with one vote per state.  Note that New Jersey is a non-slave, non-Southern state.

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
[ Parent ]
yeah (0.00 / 0)
But didn't they want to count all their slaves for the purposes of apportionment?  hence the 3/5th's compromise.
[ Parent ]
actually, if we're nitpicking (0.00 / 0)
New Jersey had legal slavery too.

New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.
[ Parent ]
Fair enough (4.00 / 1)
I got confused.

Still, whilst that rather punctures my rhetorical bombast, I think my original point is still valid:

That the compromises that made a bicameral legislature necessary in the late 18th century are entirely irrelevant in a 21st century context.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
The Illinois Constitution (4.00 / 2)
gives the governor sole power to fill a vacant Senate seat, so the only way to get around that would seem to be for Blago to vacate the office, one way or another. Then the new governor could call for a special election. Short of Blago resigning as part of a plea agreement, nobody so far has found a legal way to stop him from appointing the next senator from Illinois. It is indeed a ridiculous system. I hope this blatant example propels nationwide reform.
Word is (0.00 / 0)
the state legislature (inc. Dems) is looking to impeach him ASAP to prevent him from naming the Senator.

Still, that can only happen so fast. I assume if Blago wanted to appoint somebody tomorrow, nobody could do anything to stop him.

[ Parent ]
I suppose the Senate could refuse to seat the person (0.00 / 0)
But that seems far-fetched.


New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.
[ Parent ]
Not at all (4.00 / 1)
That is what I expect would happen to such a tainted appointment were it to occur.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.
[ Parent ]
Could the Senate (0.00 / 0)
do something to stop his appointment from being seated, thus forcing a special election anyway?
[ Parent ]
I don't see why not... (4.00 / 2)
If they were going to refuse to seat Stevens, they could refuse to seat an appointment from Blago.

This is silly... Blago isn't going to be able to fill the seat with anybody now because anybody he appoints will be tainted. In other words, I doubt that anyone would even accept an appointment from him.

He's done.

[ Parent ]
I guess you don't know Blagojevich... (0.00 / 0)
His wife would accept the appointment. He would accept the appointment. So would any of thousands of others. He couldn't care less about "tainted". Tainted is mother's milk for him.
[ Parent ]
Except... (0.00 / 0)
As I said, the Senate won't seat him, the state legislature will probably revoke it, etc.

He has no power to do it any more.  If he tries to do something now he'll be blocked one way or another.

I live in IL, so I know how crappy Blago is.  I just don't see how he has any political power to do this any more.

[ Parent ]
Although (0.00 / 0)
now that I look around a bit more, it seems that the Ill. legislature is not now in session, and it seems that the only person who could call a special session is ... you guessed it.

If Blago is determined to hang on to his position for the time being, and he is determined to appoint a senator, I'm not sure there's anything that can be done. I don't think the U.S. Senate would be justified in refusing to seat the incoming senator, though I'm not sure what the criteria are for that process.

[ Parent ]
Arrrgh (0.00 / 0)
now it appears I was right the first time ... or something ... apparently the legislature is back in session ... I'll never trust Chuck Todd again.
[ Parent ]
Democracies vote on stuff (4.00 / 2)
Like California's Proposition 8

Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company: Religion, Politics, the Occasional Intersection of Both
Democracies (0.00 / 0)
don't let themselves be sold to the highest bidder and biggest advertiser. California is not a democracy when it comes to its referendum system.
[ Parent ]
Seconded... (0.00 / 0)
Special elections for all open seats.

And yeah, the Senate should probably be dissolved and folded into the house. "Small states" with less than 3 reps can get their extra representation by gaining 2 more House reps, or something to that effect.

I like the Wyoming rule (0.00 / 0)
It requires that the numbers of representatives is increased until all states have an apportionment proportionate to that of the least populated state.

That said, there is a degree of sense to a second chamber. If it acts as a delaying chamber for major legislation to be brought out into the open, then it's a helpful thing (although if it's where bills go to die, it's a waste of space).

The difficulty is in designing a second chamber that isn't a mirror image of the first but is still basically democratic.

I could go for 100 Senators elected by dividing the nation into 50 areas of equal populatio, but I don't see that one working.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
As long as we have states... (0.00 / 0)
"I could go for 100 Senators elected by dividing the nation into 50 areas of equal populatio, but I don't see that one working."

There's not really much point to this.  You could re-divide up states by population, I suppose... but that seems rather silly as well.  If there is going to be such a thing as "states" then they deserve representation... but they deserve representation in a way that is proportional to the other states, which is what the House of Representatives is supposed to do.  Just say that the minimum is 3 house reps, get rid of the senate, and you'd be giving the "small" states a bit of extra weight per their population without the ridiculously overpowered weight of the Senate.

[ Parent ]
States mean nothing to me (0.00 / 0)
Since we're putting forward proposals that will never be enacted, I figure getting rid of states deserves a hearing.

People talk about the rights of states without pausing to acknowledge that a state is an administrative construct with nothing approaching personhood. I just think you could preserve some form of local administrative system that might follow state lines, whilst ignoring them as electoral entities. Just putting forward the citizens over states perspective, somewhat incoherently.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
I guess at some point... (4.00 / 1)
You need to figure out how much to localize government.  There's obviously several levels of government... even condo associations are basically tiny little governments.

So does it make sense to have a construct for something the rough size of states?  I'm guessing that there's probably enough valid differences between states and what they can contribute to the nation that it probably does make some sort of sense.  

Now, should there be a maximum landmass/population for what states are?  Perhaps... Should the "State" construct have an inordinate amount of influence on the direction of the federal government? Probably not...  State's should have proportional representation at the federal level based on total population.

But, States can still exist to govern themselves... Wyoming can still be governed differently than Illinois... but Wyoming shouldn't have just as much a say (in 1/2 of the US Congress) as IL does.

[ Parent ]
proportional representation (4.00 / 1)
hmmm....I thought that was the House of Representatives.

the whole idea behind the Senate wasn't to establish a political Peerage (as in Olde England), but to provide a Legislative assembly where states with small populations wouldn't be drowned out by larger states.

In that light, I think it's doing the job adequately.

As for how its members are elected/selected...Best left to the states' citizens, whether they prefer election or governor's appointment....  whatever floats the boat.

Any time the argument arises that maybe we need a more Parliamentarian system of government, I look back at England (remember Cromwell?), the first French republic (and 'The Terror'...and Napoleon), Canada right now, and Israel.  Unrestrained democracy seems to lead to the population voting itself irrational entitlements (amusingly termed 'bread and circuses'), or in Israel and Italy's cases, governments that change more often than people change undergarments.

This being said, in IL it's high time the state stood up to the corrupt Chicago Machine, and run the bums out.  I hope they legislate a snap election for whoever will fill the remainder of Obama's term, so that the candidate need not have to deal with the Blagojevitch issue.....

Governor Ryan, the Republican guv (0.00 / 0)
currently in the pen for corruption had nothing to do with the "Chicago Machine". Neither did convicted guv Democrat Dan Walker. The corruption in IL goes far beyond Chicago, but is probably no worse than we find in the rest of the large states.
[ Parent ]
I disagree and I live here. (0.00 / 0)
Corruption is so thick you can cut it with a knife and it's gotten worse, not better.  It's bipartisan, too.  An even moderately non-corrupt Republican could have defeated Blago in 2006 but everyone knew that Judy Baar Topinka was as bad (although maybe not as stupid about it).  The same set of insiders that fouled Ryan's nest foul Blago's.  The same people.

What about all the nepotism of the last five years?  Lipinski, Stroger, Madigan.  What's different here is that the pols think their positions are a "family business" that can and should be passed on to their children and nobody can do a damned thing about it.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

[ Parent ]
Where to begin? (4.00 / 1)
Firstly, if you think a single chamber was what led to Cromwell's Protectorate, I suggest you read a book on the subject. Any book. I'm serious. Nobody but nobody thinks that unicameralism was a more important factor than said chamber being filled with Cromwell's (fraudulently elected at the best of times) stooges and the fact that he controlled the military.

You may have more of a case with the terror, but a second chamber wouldn't have stopped that. Young democracies are unstable things and they're apt to be a lot less pleasant when they emerge in the context of a struggle with the most appalling reactionary shits (I use the term in a technical sense.)

As for Israel and Italy, it's notable that the former has only had problems recently when trust has fallen in all the major parties (so gridlock and the rise of minor parties is probably the best solution) whilst Italy's instability stems from it not having been terribly democratic prior to the fall of the Warsaw Pact - every coalition was an arbitrary conglomeration of opposing interests so as to make sure the Communists never got near power.

Would you like to trot the Weimar Republic canard out too? Because I can refute that one too.

Meanwhile, you don't explain why exactly smaller states need more say in a legislative assembly. They may need restrictions to make sure they get the necessary amount of revenue (although parliamentary systems don't exactly starve their least populous regions of resources) but they don't need extra influence on questions of union laws, or gay marriage, or health care, or just about anything.

Let's face it: the reason Montana would get a fairly negligible amount of the attention in a proportionate unicameral chamber is because a fairly negligible amount of the population lives anywhere near Montana. This is just demographics. Each individual there would get the same amount of representation as anybody elsewhere, so why does an arbitrary body named 'Montana' deserve more influence?

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

[ Parent ]
Oh please (4.00 / 2)
The Constitutional "method of filling vacant Senate seats" may have been actually written "back when Senators weren't even elected by popular vote," but it was enacted along with the change to direct election of Senators (Amendment XVII).

And your post suggests that the "Constitutional method" is appointment by the governor. Amendment XVII actually mandates special elections, not gubernatorial appointment, although it contains a proviso:

When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, that the legislature of any state may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

The problem is not with the Constitution, it's with state legislatures. Direct your blame there.

Special election! Hooray! (0.00 / 0)
I saw that Harper's had an "abolish the Senate" story last year, but didn't read it.

I should know why the Senate has the form it does, but if there are two senators from each state and they were originally supposed to be elected by state legislatures, it is clear that the Senate represents the states. The Senate stands for a federalist government where the government is the government of the states as well as the government of the people. The Civil War may have changed this relationship irrevocably.  

Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear.  

One note of caution (4.00 / 1)
I would not favor elections to fill such vacancies if they fell within six months of a scheduled election.  In that limited context, I don't think gubernatorial appointment would be terrible.  Elections cost too damned much already.

Other than that, I agree.

sTiVo's rule: Just because YOU "wouldn't put it past 'em" doesn't prove that THEY did it.

To add... (0.00 / 0)
People are thinking about this in the general sense (ie, should special elections be used to fill vacant seats), but let's think about it in the practical sense for right now.

There are going to be at least 3 Senate appointments in the very near future.  They should all be under increased scrutiny now.  As such, they should all have special elections now.

While I Generally Agree (0.00 / 0)
that gubernatorial appointments are problematic, special elections for everything aren't a very good remedy. On the one hand, elections cost money. Not the biggest deal in the world, but also not the most effective way to spend state funds when budgets are going to have to shrink. Also, assuming that you want the seat filled by the time the member would be seated, you're talking about basically 6 weeks to campaign, not exactly the most effective way for people to suddenly mount efforts at the seat, meaning that the advantage, by and large, is going to go to the most connected officials in the state that have a cance to organize and raise some money, or get money pledged, ahead of time.

I think a good model for the future is something akin to what the Governor of Delaware did with Biden's seat. By appointing a long time staffer, you can be reasonably sure his votes will tend to mirror the way Biden would have voted, and in picking someone with no desire to run for re-election, you'll get an open process in a couple of years to fill the seat full time. So I would suggest some sort of rule that anyone who took the seat via appointment would be ineligible to run in the election immediately following their appointment, or something like that.  

I agree (0.00 / 0)
States should pass laws calling for special election to be held at the next general election.  In the meantime the governor could appoint a caretaker, but that person would not be allowed to run in the special election.  Further, the appointment of the governor should be subject to confirmation by the state legislature.  This would allow more non establishment candidates time to form grass roots support, while filling the vacancy in the near term.  
[ Parent ]
Case in point (0.00 / 0)
http://voices.washingtonpost.c...

Caroline Kennedy and Andrew Cuomo have the most "support" for filling Hillary's Senate seat. That they're probably the only candidates with any sort of name recognition, and that they get that name recognition from their families, is almost certainly the main reason for that. Having a special election next week wouldn't really make things any fairer, in practice, because grassroots candidates would never have time to mount a respectable campaign, and Kennedy (or Cuomo) would crush them on nothing but name recognition.  

[ Parent ]
"The Embarrassment of our Democracy" (4.00 / 1)
To be sure, our democracy has plenty of embarrassments, but I wouldn't label the Senate structure as one of them.

The Senate embodies one of the founding principles of our country, minority rights. We don't live in a majoritarion nation, where the will of the majority of people runs the show. We live in a country that specifically protects the interests of those that would otherwise have no power, whether they be minority religions, minority Ethnic groups, or small states. We don't always succeed in doing so (see Prop 8), but I think its a great aspect of our constitution.

The House represents the majority, while nearly every aspect of the Senate (filibusters, holds, unanimous consent, and equal state representation) give power to the minority.

"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak" -Paul Wellstone

I Think That (0.00 / 0)
The Senate has probably outlived its usefulness in terms of equal representation, but it's probably worth remembering that at the time of the drafting, the states were the ultimate sovereign entitites, and were talking of forming a union. How likely would we be to create a union with China in which they got 4x the weight we did? Probably not very, and it was the same scenario for Conncecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, etc. then. And we've managed to survive it for 220 years, I hardly think it'smuch of a pressing issue now.  
[ Parent ]
I agree with your post. (0.00 / 0)
And for those who don't see any issues that might pit small vs. large states, give it some time.  History does have ways of repeating itself.  I think our democracy has more pressing issues than the structure of its congress.  
[ Parent ]
Oregon- has a Special Election to fill vacant US Senate Seats. (0.00 / 0)
I remember in 1995 when Bob Packwood resigned. a Special Election occured in Jan 1996.
Special Elections For All Vacant Senate Seats | 53 comments





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