Governor Patrick Announces Date of Special Senatorial Election And Support For Appointment Powers

BOSTON/State House - The official quest to replace Edward Kennedy in the U.S. Senate began this past Monday when MA Governor Deval Patrick announced January 19 2010 as the date for a special election to fill the seat left vacant by Kennedy’s passing on August 25th. OMB Audio: Governor Deval Patrick’s official announcement of the date set for the Senate election. As of this writing only Martha Coakley state Attorney General and a Democrat has announced an intention to run for the seat. On Friday night WBZ-TV reported that Congressman Steven Lynch acquired nominating papers for the Senate seat but reported that the District 9 Representative will hold off on making a formal declaration until next week. Secretary of State William Galvin announced on the Election Division website that a primary for candidates of the various political parties will be held on Tuesday December 8th. The legislature’s Joint Committee on Election Laws will hold hearings on Wednesday September 9th to gauge their colleague’s and the public’s position on a request made by Senator Kennedy a few weeks before he died that the Governor be given the legal right to appoint an interim Senator for the four or five months leading up to the special election. Governor Patrick said he supports Kennedy’s wishes adding that “Massachusetts needs two voices; particularly now ” as Congress debates health care reform and other important social and economic reforms. During a press conference following his prepared statement on Monday Patrick said he wholly supports the democratic process and expressed a desire to work with the legislature to change the current law. At the moment the law does not allow the governor to appoint an interim Senator. A similar measure was considered and rejected by the MA legislature in 2006 before Patrick was elected Governor. In 2004 Democrats in control of the legislature changed the law to stop then Governor Mitt Romney from choosing a Republican to fill the seat potentially left vacant in the event Senator John Kerry had succeeded in his bid to become president. Since talk of again changing the law has escalated Republican politicians have been accusing Democrats of “manipulating the law to grab political power ” according to the website of the Massachusetts Republican Party. State Representative Byron Rushing not a member of the Joint Committee on Election Laws but recognized by many as an astute observer of legislative history reminded a reporter during an interview in his office this week that “it’s important to remember that the system we changed in 2004 was a system that said the Governor would appoint someone to the Senate that would fill the term [emphasis added] of the departing Senator. And so depending on how many years were left in the term was how long that person would serve." [John Kerry’s appointed replacement – if the Senator had won the presidency in 2004 - would have served out the remaining four years of the term.] "And the idea of having an election sometime in that period in and of itself was certainly a pro-democracy decision " Rushing continued. "What we have now before us is the idea of trying to do both those things. Appoint somebody but try to appoint somebody in a way that it is clear that person doesn’t fill the entire term but fills the space in between as close to the present as we can get and to the time that someone is elected…so both an election and an appointment.” OMB Audio: Conversation with State Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Boston) on the Senate vacancy left by the passing of Ted Kennedy and partisan politics. During Monday’s press conference Patrick was asked if the leadership of the national Democratic Party was pressuring him to act quickly to change the law and choose a fellow member of the party. His answer was an emphatic “no” but he did say he had spoken with Majority Leader Harry Reid who the Governor described as “concerned” about the situation in Massachusetts. He said Reid had not given him a deadline to resolve the issue of an interim appointment. When asked how he came to the decision to support a change in the law and whether Senator Kennedy’s request had influenced his decision Patrick said “You know what you want me to be honest? I don’t need this headache. And what I mean by that is the purely political business of saying yes to someone and no to a lot of other people.” He declined to name any particular candidate he had in mind for the appointment. Patrick also said he had not spoken with President Obama. When asked whether or not he would run for the Senate seat himself Patrick said he already had a job and would run for reelection as governor. Web Resources: http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elespeif/senatorincongressma.htm http://www.mass.gov/legis/comm/j15.htm http://www.massgop.com/index.php?id=211 Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati