Constitutional wonkery! In the wake of Blago and Caroline Kennedy, Senator Russ Feingold is introducing an amendment to require special elections in the event of U.S. Senate vacancies. It would clarify an ambiguity in the second paragraph of the Seventeenth Amendment.
Nate at 538 thinks it has a good chance of getting passed and ratified, because successful amendments are those that are “seen as advancing sufficiently nonzerosum objectives (e.g. Good Government) that do not clearly advantage one party over another.” But some of his commenters think there should be an exception for national emergencies in which the entire membership of the Senate gets killed.
All in all I think that’s a great idea, and not just because I like Feingold.
This appointment business is just too prone to shady deals and an easy way for totally unqualified but powerfully-connected people to get in the Senate without facing an election (I am SO glad Caroline Kennedy dropped out).
Yes, there ought to be an exception in case of emergency, but if you think about it — in any situation in which a significant chunk of the Senate gets killed off, would there be any real point in holding elections any more? I’m thinking of situations like in Y: The Last Man and Battlestar Galactica.
In a doomsday scenario, be it a fast-acting bomb or a slow-acting infection, where a significant portion of our rulers might be eliminated, then elections would stand (probably herald!) the enduring value that is the Nation of America. It would penultimately act to enforce the one core value we have as a nation of ideals not blood: the governance of equality should always endure any adversity, be it tyranny or force majeure.
rob@egoz.org
Indeed, that is a position that makes sense. Yet such a calamity could also be turned around as opportunity to build a new world out of the ashes of the old.