Senate Replacement Follies

The Illinois Speaker of the House is moving forward on the impeachment of Rod Blagojevich in a deliberative fashion, which is how these things must be done, under the proper rules and constraints. Of course there's the time frame of appointing a Senator to replace Barack Obama, which is hurting representation of the citizens of Illinois even as we speak, and would greatly impact the President-elect's agenda if no successor is found until April, which would be the timeline of a special election.

The best option for all involved would be for the Governor to resign, or even step aside while keeping his pay, long enough for the Lieutenant Governor to name a replacement as a placeholder. Then there should be a special election on top of that so that the interests of the citizens of the state are represented instead of the whim of one politician.

(Of course, while I do agree that all Senate seats should involve special elections, fatigue could set in. For instance, as it stands now in New York, whoever is appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat will have to face voters in 2010, to fill out the remainder of the term, AND in 2012, when Clinton's term ends. There's nothing totally wrong with that, but at some point, the notion of service gets lost in all these elections.)

There needs to be a full complement of 100 Senators when the next Congress begins, and so the requisite steps must be taken. But I do have a distaste for the appointment process. Caroline Kennedy seems like a nice person but open politicking to be handed a Senate seat doesn't seem in the spirit of anything American. It smacks of dynastic politics. Maybe she'd be good at it, but she ought to make her case to the voters, with all the specifics on the issues that such a case would imply.