In 2004, Massachusetts Democrats decided that the people of Massachusetts didn’t need two senators if one of their seats fell vacant – a position heartily endorsed by the state’s senior senator, Teddy The Hutt. The reason? The election of John Kerry as president would have allowed a Republican (Mitt Romney) to fill the seat. Now, however, with death breathing down the neck of the last and least of the Kennedy brothers, the Senator from Chivas Regal insists that his vacant seat must be filled immediately for the good of the state and the nation – because, after all, there is a Democrat occupying the Governor’s office in Massachusetts.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in a poignant acknowledgment of his mortality at a critical time in the national health care debate, has privately asked the governor and legislative leaders to change the succession law to guarantee that Massachusetts will not lack a Senate vote when his seat becomes vacant.

In a personal, sometimes wistful letter sent Tuesday to Governor Deval L. Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, Kennedy asks that Patrick be given authority to appoint someone to the seat temporarily before voters choose a new senator in a special election.

If allowing the governor to fill a vacant seat was not that important five years ago, it certainly isnÂ’t that important now. And given that KennedyÂ’s illness has caused him to be MIA and Massachusetts without that second vote in the Senate for most of the period since his diagnosis, I fail to see how filling the seat becomes any sort of imperative once he is DOA. After all, the state will not have any less representation on the Senate floor than it does now.

Posted by: Greg at 11:02 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 327 words, total size 2 kb.