Will New York go the special election route?

posted at 12:15 pm on January 14, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Republicans in Illinois couldn’t force the legislature to change the law and require a special election for Barack Obama’s empty Senate seat, and impeached governor Rod Blagojevich ended up appointing an insider instead.  In New York, Republicans want to strip Governor David Paterson of that same power, and they may have more leverage with which to succeed.  What they lack, however, is time:

Republicans in New York’s Legislature are pushing for a special election to fill the expected vacancy in the U.S. Senate instead of allowing Democratic Gov. David Paterson to make a unilateral appointment through a secretive process.

The efforts, however, are by traditionally powerless minority conferences of the Assembly and Senate and face a near impossible timetable to even get the bills to floor debates before Paterson chooses Hillary Rodham Clinton’s successor from a field of Democrats including Caroline Kennedy and Andrew Cuomo.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco, a Schenectady Republican, noted specifically that Kennedy, the perceived front-runner, has no record in elected office and her positions on public policy are largely unknown.

“We need an election, not a coronation, to ensure our next U.S. senator reflects the will of the people,” Tedisco said.

The GOP in New York do not control either chamber of the legislature, but they have more influence in Albany than the nearly-impotent GOP in Illinois does in Springfield.  The vacillation of Paterson on the appointment helps, especially with a new poll out showing that Caroline Kennedy continues to lose support from voters for the appointment.  The disaster of her press relations in the last two weeks may have awakened a desire in the electorate for a popular vote rather than an appointment, which can only help Republicans.

Jazz Shaw says that the string of Democratic scandals could also boost momentum for a special election:

The appointment system is in place for emergency situations and ideally would only occasionally result in a temporarily appointed official. But New York has been reeling under a series of scandals, combined with Clinton exiting for greener pastures and our election laws have created a “perfect storm” of vacancies where appointments are more plentiful than elections. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is still being considered for the Senate seat and if he is chosen we will have a Governor, a Comptroller, an A.G. and a Senator who were not elected, along with a Lt. Governor’s office which by law will remain empty until 2010. In fact, under that scenario, the only elected statewide official in New York will be Chuck Schumer for the next two years.

Tedisco and the minority Republicans have raised an interesting issue. All of this is happening properly under existing law, but it’s doubtful that the authors of these laws ever anticipated having this many people in the state’s highest positions of power at one time without ever facing the choice of the voters to place them there. Perhaps it is time to take a fresh look at the process, evaluate the costs of special elections and put the selection power back more firmly in the hands of the voters.

That does present a rather ugly picture for New York.  They probably haven’t had that many appointed leaders since colonial times.  To be fair, Paterson was elected as Lieutenant Governor and succeeded through Eliot Spitzer’s resignation, but Jazz’ point remains germane.  No one voted for Paterson to be governor, and having a full slate of appointments rather than elected officials calls into question whether New York can claim to have a representative government at all.

I’d bet that Republicans won’t succeed in pushing through a change in time for this particular open seat, but expect that in itself to become a campaign issue in 2010.  State legislatures around the country should review how empty positions get filled — and they should look hard at limiting the power of appointments and lean back towards popular elections instead.

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