Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Still Voting Present

I guess old habits are hard to break, like voting present. The Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich is under indictment, but refusing to resign. As I posted earlier, the Illinois house is no hurry to remove the governor through impeachment. So what can be done to prevent this sleazeball from making a senate appointment? The constitution gives the state legislature the authority to grant the governor the appointment power and they could rescind it and call a special election to fill the vacant seat.
From the 17th amendment:

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

In my humble opinion, rescinding the governor's authority and holding a special election is the fast and constitutional method for the legislature to avoid a bigger mess in Illinois. Our man was asked his opinion about a special election to fill his old seat:

Obama was pulled into the dispute Tuesday when the president-elect refused to say whether he supports a special election.

This is a continuation of Obama's record in the Illinois state senate, where he voted present 130 times in his short tenure there. He continued his trend in the United States Senate, repeatedly not voting, see the official record. (I started to count up the numbers, but got exhausted.) This also continues a trend of partisanship, of never wanting to endorse anything the Democratic establishment is against.

Hopefully, he won't be faced with any decisions as tough as whether to hold a special election after he is sworn in on January 20th.

2 comments:

  1. That he doesn't have an opinion on this seems kind of strange. Or is that typical?

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  2. KT, my point is that it's typical. My fear is that his administration will be marked by indecision, which will be perceived as weakness by our enemies. Jimmy Carter comes to mind.

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