Just giving you an update, readers; I really don't want to comment on this issue much anymore because it just infuriates me.
"House backs an interim senator; If Senate support holds, governor could make appointment next week" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff | September 18, 2009
..... Massachusetts on track to have a new senator in place by next week....
Representative Michael Moran, a Democrat from Boston and cochairman of the Joint Committee on Election Laws. “My overriding concern is making sure the people of Massachusetts are fully represented in the US Congress.’’
Of course, five years ago....
Passage of the bill has been a major issue on Beacon Hill since Kennedy’s death last month and has drawn sharp attention from Washington Democrats, who have been aggressively pushing for Massachusetts to temporarily fill the seat to give them more leeway in approving a national health care plan. Shortly before his death, Kennedy himself advocated the change in law.
After he helped change 200+ years of our state constitution in 2004.
Republicans, who account for a historically small minority in the Legislature, have charged Democrats with hypocrisy, saying that the Democrats rejected making precisely the same change to the law in 2004, because they did not want Governor Mitt Romney to have a chance to appoint a Republican to the Senate in the event that Senator John F. Kerry won the presidency....
According to a Globe review of last night’s tally, 44 of the Democrats who voted against the amendment in 2004 changed their votes this time and voted for it.
State Representative Paul Frost, a Republican from Auburn: “It is clear to me and, I think, to most people in Massachusetts that if [2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate] Kerry Healey had won that election and was governor today, we would not be here.’’
Republicans are vowing to use the vote as a campaign issue as Democrats are already feeling vulnerable over several Beacon Hill ethical scandals and a controversial increase in the state’s sales tax. Several mayors have lost recent preliminary elections, perhaps a signal that the political atmosphere is sour for incumbents.
Oh, THAT is an UNDERSTATEMENT!!!!
It is MORE than SOUR it is DOWNRIGHT TOXIC!!!!!
Several state lawmakers grew more nervous when former House speaker Thomas Finneran predicted that Democrats would experience some fallout. “Democrats are going to pay a price for this politically,’’ Finneran, who was at the helm when the law was initially changed in 2004, said on his WRKO-AM morning talk show.
The original legislation would have required the governor’s appointee, who would serve until a Jan. 19 special election, to be of the same political party as the person who previously held the office. But late yesterday afternoon, House lawmakers struck that provision by an 89-to-68 vote, with concerns that such a requirement may be unconstitutional.
Democrats broke with House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and joined Republicans to support the measure.
That's what needs to happen in this state.
During yesterday’s debate, which lasted nearly eight hours, Democratic state lawmakers argued that the state needed to fill the seat immediately so that their counterparts in Washington would have the votes to push through a health care bill that Kennedy would be proud of.
I'm so sick of them. I'll NEVER VOTE DEMOCRAT ever again!!!
“Some people say this is political,’’ said state Representative Cory Atkins, a Concord Democrat. “Of course it is political. This is the largest domestic vote so far in this century. This vote will be as important as the Social Security vote. This will be as important as the civil rights vote.’’
As IMPORTANT as a WAR VOTE!!!!
**************
“We’re powerless to stop it, unless someone wants to steal the legislation or something like that, which has happened in this building before,’’ said House minority leader Brad Jones.
The debate began early yesterday afternoon, after the Democrats emerged from a closed-door caucus. DeLeo, emerging from the caucus, made his first public comments in support of the change in law.
“At the end of the day, what concerns me greatly is that Massachusetts has that vote,’’ DeLeo said. “I don’t want to see Massachusetts not getting the representation they deserve.’’
Of course, that didn't matter five years ago.
--more--"
"Senate Republicans halt debate on bill for a Kennedy fill-in" by Matt Viser and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff | September 19, 2009
.... Democrats argued that a second voice was needed to represent the state in Washington and that Kennedy would have wanted an appointee to push for a health care overhaul, while Republicans charged Democrats with playing partisan politics and being pawns of Washington.
But not five years ago, blah, blah, blah.
Republicans also charged Democrats with hypocrisy, saying Democrats rejected the same interim appointment provision in 2004, as an amendment to a bill that established the special election process for filling vacant Senate seats. Previously, the governor had the power to appoint a successor, who would then serve until the next general election.
They are unbelievable.
At the time, Democratic leaders were trying to prevent the possibility that Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican, would have the power to appoint someone to replace US Senator John F. Kerry if he won the presidency. When the House passed the legislation on Thursday night, 58 lawmakers voted the opposite way as they did on the interim appointment amendment on June 30, 2004.
With a governor from their party now in the corner office, 44 Democrats had a change of heart and switched their nay to a yea. All 13 Republicans that have remained in the House since 2004 changed course and voted against the proposal....
One lawmaker swam against the partisan tide: Democrat Christopher G. Fallon of Malden changed his vote from yea to nay.
Massachusetts' lone honest Democrat.
Patrick told reporters yesterday that President Obama personally asked him about the efforts to change the law when the two attended Kennedy’s funeral last month, according to the Associated Press. The governor said Obama did not lobby specifically for the change, but his aides have been in regular contact about it....
Imagine if it were GEORGE W. BUSH interfering in Massachusetts politics and the OUTRAGED SQUAWKING that the liberals in this state would make.
And so much for setting politics aside for the funeral, huh?
