When Democratic Senator John Kerry ran for president in 2004, the Massachusetts legislature, worried that then-Republican Governor Mitt Romney would be able to appoint his interim successor, stripped the power of appointment from the governor. It passed a law prohibiting the governor of the state from filing vacated senate seats, instead providing for a special election.
But now that there is a Democratic governor in the state, the legislature has decided that perhaps they were wrong five years ago. Now, it is of the utmost importance that Massachusetts have its full number of representatives in the Senate. Now, they trust the governor to fill a vacant seat. Now, the voice of the people is not their biggest concern.
If a Republican-led legislature had done the same thing, would the media be this quiet about it? Is this not the most blatant example of hypocrisy by those supposedly elected to serve all the people of their state?
"The Democrats' power play in Massachusetts has nothing to do with principle, and everything to do with politics. With their unpopular government-run health care bill on the brink of failure, Democrats in Washington desperately need another vote in the U.S. Senate, and it is clear that this administration will stop at nothing to ram it through the Congress," said Rob Jesmer, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, in a written statement.
But the power play here is not all on the shoulders of the legislature, because even it had exercised a modicum of restraint. The real villain here is the governor, Deval Patrick. The Massachusetts legislature approved the bill permitting the governor to name a successor to the late Senator Ted Kennedy. But the legislature did not include a provision in the bill to have it take effect immediately. Instead, like any other bill, it came with a 90-day waiting period before it could come into effect.
So the governor has taken it upon himself to override the part of the law. Gov. Patrick said yesterday that he would send a letter to the secretary of state to declare an emergency that would allow him to make the bill take effect immediately. He has already named a replacement, Paul Kirk, a longtime aide to the late Senator.
An emergency? The idea that the Democrats may not be able to ram a health care bill down the throats of America without having to hear, consider or – heaven forbid – include input from the minority party. That’s their idea of an emergency.
So where is the outrage? Besides, Fox News Channel and the right-wing radio shows, that is. Why is the rest of the media not as offended by this as the Republicans are? This should not be a partisan issue – it should be about fairness. The Democrats in Massachusetts stripped their elected Republican governor from being allowed to fill a vacant seat, then gave that right to their Democratic governor just a few years later. And then that governor went a step further, declaring an emergency to give him the right to act immediately – for the sole purpose of pushing through legislation in the Senate that the public is split on.
The governor of Massachusetts is allowed to unilaterally announce an emergency to give himself this extreme power and what is the disaster he is seeking to avert? Debate on the issue of health care. Compromise in the Senate. Or, worse, the prospect that President Obama won’t get what he wants.
Sadly, in the new Obama era, that does qualify as an emergency.
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