I'm about to send the email below to Mass. Senate President Therese Murray, who according to the Boston Globe is cool to Kennedy's request that state law be amended to (again) allow gubernatorial appointments for Senate vacancies. And also to my state reps Marty Walz and Anthony Petruccelli, and the Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo.
Dear Senator Petruccelli, Representative Walz, President Murray and Speaker DeLeo:
I was moved to write you after seeing the Globe headline on my walk to work today, about Sen. Kennedy's request.
I urge you to move forward with his suggestion, for the good of the Commonwealth and of the country. I realize it looks bad at first glance, but I and many other Mass. citizens realize this is necessary, and we will have your back.
Gubernatorial appointments have a major advantage and two surmountable problems, the way I see it. The advantage of is obvious: it ensures Massachusetts voters will be represented at all times, which is especially crucial for important legislation like health care reform. As sloppy as this back-and-forth legislation might be, I and most Democrats I know will be about ten times more outraged if Sen. Kennedy's seat is vacant and health care reform fails by a single vote.
The problems with such appointments are, first of all, that unless prohibited a Governor can appoint someone of a different party against the presumed will of the voters, as we feared Gov. Romney might do in 2004. But some states have laws prohibiting this, and any law you pass should have such a provision. (In retrospect, this probably would've been the best way to deal with the issue in 2004, instead of banning temporary appointments altogether.) Second, the appointed Senator has an unearned, unfair advantage when the next election comes around. But this is easily dealt with as well, by prohibiting any temporary appointees from running in the next election.
In short, please, please ensure that Massachusetts voters are continuously represented in Congress.
Sincerely,
Zach Alexander
You can find your Mass. reps here.