The problem with Blagojevich is just an example of a larger flaw in our system:
Governors should NEVER be allowed to fill empty Senate seats. A Senator is a very powerful person who can serve up to 6 years between elections. Senators are supposed to be ELECTED public servants. The citizens of a state should not be forced to spend years with a person in the Senate who is supposedly representing them, when they never even voted for them.
The problem with Blagojevich is just an example of a larger flaw in our system:
Governors should NEVER be allowed to fill empty Senate seats. A Senator is a very powerful person who can serve up to 6 years between elections. Senators are supposed to be ELECTED public servants. The citizens of a state should not be forced to spend years with a person in the Senate who is supposedly representing them, when they never even voted for them.
A governor should not have the power to side-step elections to the Senate. People have a right to VOTE for their Senators. Elections are especially important because once some one manages to claw their way into the Senate... they could be there a very long time.
Just look at Lieberman! Because incumbents have such as strong advantage, even when his supporters turned against him, we still couldn’t throw him out. Now the people of Connecticut are STUCK with this guy, for who knows how long. Of course I understand that Lieberman wasn’t appointed, so the situation is a little different, but my point is that it is very hard to vote out incumbent Senators.
Once some one is appointed to the Senate, they will probably win re-election even if the people of the state don’t particularly like them. Even if, in other words, the Senate appointee would never have won in a fair and open election, they might win as an incumbent and saddle a state (not to mention the Democratic Party and the progressive movement) with some one no one really likes.
What are our alternatives if Burris manages to get into the Senate? Now I know it’s POSSIBLE he’d actually be a good Senator, but if he turned into another Lieberman, how would we get rid of him? It seems likely Burris would be very angry at all of us Democrats if he does get seated, because we worked so hard to stop him. What if does turn out to be a lousy Senator? Are we going to challenge the only black member of the Senate in a primary? Are we willing to replace him with a Republican in one of the bluest states in America?
When some one is appointed to the Senate it creates a bad situation all around. Allowing governors to appoint Senators is bad politically, bad strategically and oh by the way, it is also a violation of people’s right to VOTE for their representatives in Congress.
I am urging Obama to call on the Congress to eliminate Governors’ powers to appoint Senators altogether. There should ALWAYS be a special election to fill empty seats. This is a problem with our system and it can easily be fixed. If you agree, please join in with me, and call members of Congress or whatever to pitch them the idea. This way, even if we don’t fix the system in time to deal with the Blagojevich/Burris fallout, at least it will prevent the problem in the future.
I also submitted this as a question on change.gov It’d be great if people would vote for it, to bring some attention to this Idea. Here is a link to the website:
http://change.gov/...
and here’s my entire question:
"In light of extreme abuse of power lately (i.e Blagojevich) Will President Obama please ask the congress to ELIMINATE the power of governors to appoint new Senators? Senators should ALWAYS be elected. We should always just hold special elections."
You can just do a search for my text if you like the idea.
Peace in 09 everybody!
UPDATE:
A lot of people have pointed out that this would be a difficult issue to change because it could become a states-rights issue.
That is a good point. I do not want to diminish the validity of what they're saying. But can't we all agree that allowing Governors to appoint some one as powerful as a Senator is a bad idea?
I'm surprised by the negative reactions to this piece.
If people think it'd be better to change the system on a stat-by-state basis I could get on board with that I guess. I still prefer an amendment because that would fix the problem more quickly, in all 50 states at once. But leaving the system the way it is now feels unacceptable to me. SOMETHING has to change.
I still think it would be great if Obama talked about this to get the ball rolling.