Brown
Win In Massachusetts Shows Urgent Need To Reform
Senate Politics
Scott Brown’s shocking victory to succeed the Lion (or Lyin’) of the Senate, Edward M. Kennedy, shows that the
voters are in a panic, and justifiably so. While they are losing their jobs,
homes, savings and future, their money and credit was used to bail out the
banks, bankers and auto companies, the institutions arguably most responsible
for the current economic crisis.
The real
problem lies deeper, in the structure of politics, the two party system and most specifically the United States Senate. Most senators were selected by state
legislatures until the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified
on April 8, 1913. Unlike the House of
Representatives, the appointment power has been preserved in the Governor’s
power to appoint replacements in the event of a vacancy.
Since Barack
Obama’s win last year, four senate seats have become
vacant: Obama’s in Illinois, Hillary Clinton’s in New
York, Ted Kennedy’s in Massachusetts and
Ken Salazar’s in Colorado. All four were
filled by appointment. Massachusetts
voters were just the first to be given an opportunity to go to the polls and
fill the vacancy, and that circumstance in itself is an example of what is
wrong with the process.
Obama’s seat
was filled by Roland W. Burris, the first black to be elected to statewide
office in Illinois. He was elected
Controller in 1978 and Attorney General in 1990, but has unsuccessfully sought
statewide office four times since.
Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed Burris to the Senate seat vacated by Obama, precipitating a scandal that resulted in his own
indictment and resignation from office.
In New
York, Hillary Clinton’s seat was filled by Kirstin Gillibrand,
the daughter of well-connected political operatives from the upstate New York
Capital area. Kirstin, an attorney, was
in her second term in the U.S. House of Representatives. John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline, had
been considered a contender for the seat, which had been held by her uncle,
Robert Kennedy, before he was assassinated in 1968.
Gillibrand was
appointed by Governor David Paterson, who succeeded to the office in the wake
of a call-girl scandal that removed Eliot Spitzer from office. (We won’t comment on the coincidence of scandals
involving the governors of the two states which the major Democratic candidates
for president in 2008, Barack Obama
and Hillary Clinton, represented in the Senate.
The misuse of prosecution for political purposes is another serious
systemic problem, one in which Martha Coakley was on
the wrong side.) Anyway, Paterson
himself is the son of Basil Paterson, a long time state Senator from
Manhattan. So, instead of New York
getting a national or international figure to fill the vacancy left by Hillary
Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State, it gets an upstate political hack
appointed by a downstate political hack.
After Gillibrand’s appointment, Patterson’s
ratings nosedived.
Ken
Salazar’s seat was filled by Michael Bennet, Denver’s
School Superintendent. Bennet and his father ran unsuccessfully for a variety of
elected offices, but have been appointed to many, rising easily through the
ranks of the Democratic Party. While Bennet is certainly a high quality person, it is rare that
anyone who has never before been elected to public office can win a Senate seat.
And finally, we come to the vacancy
created by the death of Edward Kennedy.
In 2004, when Massachusetts Senator John Kerry was the Democratic
nominee for president, the Massachusetts legislature passed a bill, overriding
the Governor’s veto, providing for a special election to fill the vacancy, in
order to deny Republican Governor Mitt Romney the opportunity to fill the seat
if Kerry won the White House. But once
Ted Kennedy got his brain tumor, and Obama was in the
White House, Democrats began to worry about what would happen to the health
care bill if Kennedy, the 60th Democratic vote, died before
passage.
So, to
ensure continuity of representation in the Senate, something not cared about
when a Kerry vacancy was contemplated, the Massachusetts legislature obligingly
reinstated the appointment process because the Governor’s office was now in the
hands of Democrat Duval Patrick.
Furthermore, Kennedy wanted the new appointment legislation to provide
that the appointee could not seek the office in the Special Election, to mimic
the process by which President John F. Kennedy’s seat had been held open for
Teddy in 1962. After JFK became
president, Governor Foster Furcolo, a Democrat,
appointed family friend Ben Smith to fill the seat. This was because Ted did not turn 30, the age
of eligibility for the Senate, until February 22, 1962. Kennedy political careers were family
affairs, Jack was president, Bobby was appointed Attorney General, and actually
father Joe, who bankrolled the whole affair, insisted that Teddy get something,
too.
The
problem with the new appointment legislation that Kennedy sought was that it is
the United States Constitution that determines the eligibility for Senate, and
a provision in the appointment law mandating that the appointed Senator could
not seek the office in the Special Election would be unconstitutional. So, the Massachusetts legislature, which is
overwhelmingly Democratic and runs unopposed, dutifully reinstated the
appointment provision and the Governor filled the seat with Paul Kirk, Jr., a Kennedy
staffer, personal friend, former Democratic National Committee Chairman and
co-chairman of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the august body that is
the primary mechanism for fixing presidential elections in favor of the
Republicans and Democrats by routinely excluding independent candidates from
the forum. Kirk, naturally, promised not
to seek the seat for himself if appointed.
So, the
United States is at war and in the midst of the worst economic crisis in three
generations. What is the response of the
Republican and Democratic parties? It’s
politics as usual. Three senate seats
held by national and even international figures: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Edward Kennedy; have been
replaced by Roland Burris, Kirstin Gillibrand and
Paul Kirk, Jr. The latters
are not statespeople, they are political hacks par excellence. And that is the real reason voters are
angry. Both the Democrats and the
Republicans put partisan political interest, the need to retain political
power, ahead of all other considerations.
As the electorate becomes increasingly independent, given that the two
parties have structured the political system to unfairly exclude independent
candidates, then it is more essential than ever that they work together for the
good of the country. The opposite is currently
the case.
Furthermore,
having had to swallow the rigged 2000 presidential election where Nader and
Buchanan were excluded from the debates and the loser installed in office
because of a “uniform standard” argument, the Senate in its own operations
gives 50% more weight to those who vote “No” than to those who vote “Yes”. The filibuster rules in the senate mean
effectively that 60 votes are needed for passage of legislation. Why? This is another vestige of slavery and Jim
Crow America. As the nation expanded in
the nineteenth century, the filibuster rule and the 60 vote override provision
was needed to give the South a veto in order to preserve segregation. What ever happened to majority rule?
So, the
real meaning of the Massachusetts upset election is that the two party system is broken. Obama ran on a platform of change, but all he did was
change the personnel without any real change in domestic policy. Even though
people want health care reform and cost reduction, clearly this was not the major
domestic issue facing the United States in 2008. Ironically, only by giving the Republicans
more power, against a backdrop of anti-incumbent anger, can the voters try to
get them to cooperate with the administration, instead of just finger point and
oppose.
One thing is undeniable. The Massachusetts voters are saying that they
are scared and angry. That the nation is
in trouble and the political classes are acting like everything is ok. This is an emergency for the voters who are
fearful of losing their jobs, and if they lose their jobs you can bet that the
politicians, whether Republican or Democrat, will lose theirs until the economy
gets fixed.
And just in
case anyone thinks this is an aberration, the Massachusetts Special Senate
election results are almost identical to the Governor’s races in Virginia and
New Jersey that were held in November.
Republicans Scott Brown got 1,168,107 votes, Chris Christie got
1,174,445 votes and Robert McDonnell received 1,163,523. The states are similar in size, with 4.2
million voters in Massachusetts, 5.2 million in New Jersey, and 4.7 million in
Virginia. The Democrat losers got
1,058,682; 1,087,731 and 818,909 respectively.
It is not easy to get a more uniform result than this. At the moment,
public office is a poisoned chalice.
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