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Amendment to the Constitution - No more appointments by governors
Dalboz
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
Resident Puppy EaterRight behind you...Registered User regular
Sen. Russ Feingold has stated that he intends to introduce an amendment to the Constitution to say that governors no longer have the right to appoint senators to fill vacant seats, and instead that a special election must be held to fill the seats.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/25/senator-end-blagojevich-type-senate-appointments/#more-37245
I doubt this is actually going to have legs, but regardless, it's still a bad idea. It takes away a state's right to determine how a senator gets elected to office. Secondly, I guarantee that this doesn't account for the cost of holding special election, and is basically simply stating that the state needs to hold the election, but they're up shit creek without a paddle in terms of funding it.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/01/25/senator-end-blagojevich-type-senate-appointments/#more-37245
I doubt this is actually going to have legs, but regardless, it's still a bad idea. It takes away a state's right to determine how a senator gets elected to office. Secondly, I guarantee that this doesn't account for the cost of holding special election, and is basically simply stating that the state needs to hold the election, but they're up shit creek without a paddle in terms of funding it.
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As for costs, well that can be applied to all elections. It's like saying states have to pay their electricity bills, it is a cost of doing business as a democracy.
And then it goes to the states. That's where this gets made or broken.
I suppose this seems like a natural extension of the amendment making senators elected and also of the federal government's role of ensuring a republican form of government.
This is pretty much how it is now. The 17th says that the state legislature may empower the governor to appoint replacements until an election can be held.
Giving one person the power to choose is not the same thing as having one person nominate, and the legislature then investigate and approve or reject the nominee.
Oh, you mean something similar to the confirmation process that a presidential cabinet secretary gets? I'm not sure that would be better than just holding an election, honestly.
In an ideal world, yes. Unfortunately, we live in the real world.
Yeah, that statement really doesn't apply here.
C) This required very large ballots and a lot of explaining of in what order everyone was getting listed.
D) That many ballots of that size and that much explaining of probably the biggest ballot clusterfuck in American electoral history by a wide margin... yeah, I'm not surprised it came out to $55 million.
Also, that's a RECALL election. People aren't going to cotton well to someone getting appointed to replace a guy who got recalled.
I don't feel that "that's nothing compared to California's state budget" really gets across the disparity between 55 million dollars and 111 billion dollars.
If the state budget is a six foot tall man, the cost of the election would comparatively be the one thirtieth of an inch thick hair on the rug next to him.
If the cost of the election is a six foot tall man then the state budget is 12,500 foot cruising altitude for lightweight airplanes.
You do realize that you are arguing against the 17th Amendment here, right? The one that changed it from having state legislatures choose Senators to having replacements be explicitly selected by special elections or temporary appointments by the State executive? You just need to cut out the appointment clause from the 17th and you would effectively get rid of governor appointment of Senators.
Not to mention that in order to have a fair election, it would require a period of several months to elect someone. And while the election is running, the state is deprived of their senator. What happens if a state loses both of their senators? Is it okay for the state to have no representation in the Senate while the elections are running?
The elections sound great in theory, but run into some massive hurdles in practice.
Maybe it will encourage all states to go mail only for all elections (like in our wonderful home state of Oregon).
I'm down with that.
Ford-esque.
Special elections cost buttloads of money. Democracy is great and all, but those funds can go to other stuff that is important too. A federal amendment that forces states to have special election isn't going to sit well.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
And there's not some magical force in California that makes elections cost money; it's just a big, expensive state. It's not going to cost nearly as much in any other state, but they're not going to have as much to throw at it either. Given that it's pretty much SOP for states to run budget deficits as it is, this is just an extra burden on top of that.
I really don't see this being ratified.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
There are only 100 United States Senators.
I'm getting a little bit tired of the idea that we have better uses for ten million dollars than finding the right person to sit in the Senate of one of the most powerful nations in the world. Like it is just some thing that anyone can do, so whoever the string pullers want to put in is okay. Like incumbents aren't incredibly difficult to unseat and that an appointment in a safe one party state isn't something that will still be shaping United States foreign and domestic policy in the 2030's.
And just for clarification, I'm pro-Democracy on this one. I'm just saying I don't have much hope that it'll get a fair shake.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The senate votes on the ever increasing trillion plus dollar national budget every year. They vote on peace and war, the justices who shape the interpretation of the constitution etc.
You can either have the right person making those decisions or you can build three miles of highway.
Come on now.