Contra a recent Chicago Sun-Times editorial, Daniel thinks it makes more sense to fill a Senate vacancy through appointments rather than special elections:
I just don’t see a good reason why we need to spend an extra $50 million which the state does not have to pick someone. Besides, Quinn, believe it or not, is a pretty honorable guy whose honest interests have been muzzled by Blago and others. It’s more than likely that in this case he’ll pick someone worthy of the job rather than the people. Yes it’s democratic but the seat is up in two years anyway and then we can democratically pick someone good.
I’m of two minds on this; on one hand, special elections are expensive and for the incumbent party, come with the risk of losing the seat. On the other, appointments are rarely anything more than state-sanctioned opportunities for quid pro quo (Blagojevich isn’t the first person to do what he did, he’s just the first to get caught) or crass nepotism (see: Carolyn Kennedy, Beau Biden). And while that might be beneficial for the party in question, it seems detrimental to small-d democracy.
I think a better solution would be for each state to adopt 25th Amendment-esque statutes, whereby each state would detail a line of succession in the event of a Senate vacancy. Rather than going to whoever happens to have the most high-level connections, the seat would first go to a high-ranking state legislator*.
There are a couple of advantages to this. From the position of a small-d Democrat, it makes more sense to fill the seat with an experienced legislator from the statehouse; although the breadth and scale of Senate legislation is larger than state-level legislation, the skill-set is basically the same, which puts an experienced state-level legislator in a much better position than almost anyone else. Further, it can be tailored to fit partisan realities; you can easily imagine a system in which the seat automatically goes to the incumbent party’s highest-ranking state-level legislator.
On the whole, this strikes me as the best possible solution; it avoids the pitfalls of appointments and special elections (nepotism/expense, risk of a party-switch) while having the benefits of both: the partisan alignment doesn’t switch, you’re more likely to get a competent replacement, it is more democratic than an appointment.
* As a bonus, this has its roots in American history; prior to the early 20th century, Senators were elected by state legislators and not the general public.
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