Posted on 09/24/2009 11:14:40 AM PDT by raccoonradio
The Massachusetts Republican Party has filed an injunction in a Boston court seeking to block former Democratic Party chairman Paul Kirk from becoming the interim replacement for the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Lawmakers this week passed legislation giving Gov. Deval Patrick the power to appoint an interim replacement, but laws approved in Massachusetts usually take 90 days to go into effect. Patrick signed an emergency letter that he says allows the law to become effective immediately.
Republicans allege in their court filing that Patrick did not have the constitutional authority to do that.
But State Secretary William Galvin said today the power to make the immediate appointment is "very clearly available" to Patrick.
Kirk, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, is set to be sworn Friday.
Is the game going into ‘extra innings’???
The Mass. courts are pretty left-leaning, though, aren’t they??
MA = banana republic
Laws? We don’t need no stinking laws.
Republicans should be making this a HUGE issue - every day. GET some balls
They should also file for an injunction as this is an ex-post facto law, prohibited by the Constitution.
There is truly no level to which democrats won’t stoop.
This is why reporters are completely useless. Perhaps a reasonable follow-up question to SOS Galvin by some earnest reporter may have been, "Would you please cite the statutory authority that confers upon the governor the ability to expedite such an appointment". Then, the readers could examine such a citation, and decide for themselves if the Secretary is all wet, or not.
I understand that only applies to criminal law?
| From the desk of cc2k: |
Repubs said they’d file suit and it looks like they are, good for them.
“The Mass. courts are pretty left-leaning, though, aren’t they??”
They lean to the left like Mt. Everest is high.
They are talking about MA law here...
How about US Law, as in the US Constitution?
Article 1, section 9: "NO State Shall... pass ANY ex-post facto law"
Unless of course, MA is an exception to "NO STATE" and the state succession law, already triggered by the swimmer's death, is an exception to "ANY... law".
must be state court
send lawyers, guns, & money
Once Kirk is sworn in the game is over.
Too little too late I think.
“Bill, we need to be represented by two senators. It’s an emergency.”
“Right you are, gov.” (signs “emergency” letter)
Emergency, yet for a yr and a half MA did just fine (well
kinda) with only one senator, pretty much.
” the state succession law, already triggered by the swimmer’s death, “
Hmmmmm....
Wonder if ‘Bush v. Gore’ which held, in part, that (paraphrasing) ya can’t change the rules in the middle of an election count, would apply as a precedent...
Any lawyers out there???
YES! Thank G*d someone had the courage and sense to do this. This is so brazen the Equal Protection issues are quite obvious.
Guns and money to MA? They’d be confiscated no doubt!
It’s odd that the MA GOP, which failed to oppose EMK in 2006, now says it is concerned about legalities. Well, guess they have to do soemthing to occupy their time.
But State Secretary William Galvin said today the power to make the immediate appointment is “very clearly available” to Patrick.
+++++++++++++++
Because he says so!
| From the desk of cc2k: |
You bet they need to yell and LOUD!!!!!!!!!!
The congressional delegation in s MA is 100 perent Democrat. Where else is that the case? RI, VT, OR?, ND, must be a long list after all.
I'm disappointed in Galvin -- I know he's a Dem, but he's always seemed pretty good. In fact, I heard (probably on Howie Carr) that the state GOP wanted Dr. deJong (yes, Howie's vet) to run against Galvin, but deJong said, "Why would I run against Galvin? He's doing a great job."
It's got to be a legal principle somewhere! Every third grader knows you can't change the rules in the middle, and only a cheater and a sneak would try!
Silly GOP people! There’s a Democrat Governor now. The old law was for Republican Governors. Pay attention, already. Jeesh!
” only a cheater and a sneak would try! “
That’s exactly what Al Gore tried in Florida in 2000, and he came within a gnat’s whisker of succeeding - until the US Supreme Court put a stop to it...
(Which sent the poor-loser Dims into an eight-year snit..)
Where is the National Republican party and why are they not backing the state Republican party?
Why have rules when you are the demcorats? Just make them and change them to best suit your needs, whenever you need them! This is not political, this is criminal!
>>what Al Gore tried in Florida in 2000
Silly Al. If he had won his HOME STATE that year he would have had enough elec votes.
Scenario: 2010, GOP candidate Charlie Baker barely beats Patrick (not sure if it would happen but who knows). Legislature still huge for Dems.
Early 2011: Kerry has health scare,
turns in resignation (unlike EMK who wouldn’t let anybody pry the seat away from him until he took his last breath—
resigning due to ill health, you kidding?)
Change of law. Back to election.
In Florida, the rules being changed were those for conducting recounts and dealing with spoiled ballots. The Florida Supreme Court was making up rulings on the fly to help Gore.
In New Jersey, the NJ Supreme Court allowed the substitution of Lautenberg for Torricelli on the grounds that the voters had the right to a "competitive election." The problem was they they were getting a competitive election, and Torricelli was losing. So Torricelli dropped out and then the Democrats complained that it was unfair the voters didn't have a "choice," when in fact the voters were making their choice, just choosing away from the Democrats.
So, now Massachusetts will be doing the same thing. They will make up some reason why it is imperative that Patrick be allowed to appoint a Senator even though the replacement process is already underway. If it turns out that the interim Senator is allowed to run for the seat during the special election, then it will be a de facto permanent replacement.
And the MA courts will let him get away with it.
-PJ
Another Pay for Play office sold by the Democrats in Prostichusetts.
An ex post facto law (from the Latin for “after the fact”) or retroactive law, is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of acts ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law
A law that makes criminal an act that was legal when it was committed. (Latin: “after the fact”)
instech.tusd.k12.az.us/Core/glossary/ssglossary.doc
a law that takes effect before the legislative process has been completed
socsci.gulfcoast.edu/dreese/glosterm.htm
Only the third def applies here and that is what the suit essentially alleges— the gov cannot make the appointment until 90 days has elapsed.
OR has one GOP Representative (Walden).
I believe tha the states with an all-RAT congressional delegation are MA, CT (counting Lieberman as a RAT), NM, HI, RI, VT (counting Sanders as a RAT), and ND. Am I missing any?
100% agree.
“Once Kirk is sworn in the game is over.”
A Mass law was passed to prevent a Republican Governor from appointing a Republican senator. They now pass a law to allow a Democratic Governor to appoint a Democratic senator. How can you defend this hypocrisy?
I want to hear the BS response.
This smells a lot like New Jersey politics. But then what do you expect when Democrats are fully in control??
” How can you defend this hypocrisy? “
Never happen - it’s RACIST to suggest that Dims are hypocrites.....
Chicago thuggery in Mass...
That’s going to make the power-mongering Marxists in the Democrat party go apoplectic.
“Equally important, the legal concept of “the rule of law” was incorporated into our judicial system. As Hayek explains, the rule of law means that people do not have to answer to the arbitrary decisions of governmental officials; instead, they guide their actions by what is prohibited by a clearly defined law. Freedom, therefore, means answering only to a well-defined, previously established law, rather than to the arbitrary and discretionary edicts of some. “
ROTFLMAO...BwaaaaHaaaaaa...LOL...gasp...BwaaaaHaaaHaaaa...snort...LOLOLOLOLOLOL...
Oh...you were serious?
Legislators who are asked this question said they made a mistake in ‘04 with their vote on the issue but are right now.
As for Lurch or a Kennedy family member they will pull a swerve and not answer the question.
I have a question, just throwing it out there.
How do the people of Massachusetts feel about this?
Hold on a minute please. Thia past weekend had my Motherinlaw here for a visit. She, and husband, are from Massachusetts. I ask about this change in the law and snarkily ask why Mass doesn’t just make a law that says something to the effect that if the Gov is a Dem he gets to appoint senators that leave in midterm and if the Gove is a pub the citizenry must elect one within a six month term. Seemed to me, again, tongue in cheek, it would save time and would be the truth in how things are done.
MIL holds her palms in the air. She is a liberal dear Lord I didn’t smack the woman once but she’s a liberal with all the liberal talking points down perfectly pat. But she does not like Patrick Deval for some reason. She said, with an air of exasperation “What can one person like me do about it?”
For a brief five seconds I felt sorry for her and got a glimpse, briefly but with substance, into the poor liberal woman’s soul and I considered that maybe she’s a liberal cause she feels powerless to change the direction of the country. That and she IS eighty years old, maybe not ancient but an age when we might just want to rest.
Again, with a snarkism for which I am famous, I suggested perhaps a public protest, a tea party in that state where tea parties began. Yon Freepers get my point.
Of course she shook her head as such as tea parties are not for her and besides all tea party attendees as she saw it were racists but again...there’s a disconnect there.
I’m thinking that such an action in most states would enrage the citizenry who would resent having their vote played with as a cat plays with a mouse. But the citizens of Mass? We hear nary a sound when citizens of Delaware, I’m serious here and Delaware’s hardly any big red state, but I can tell you we’d be marching the streets if our legislation did such a thing.
Is there something in the water in Mass that kills all fighting spirit they ever possessed? A state that was the center of this country’s revolution is now populated by ...well I don’t know...do they all smoke dope?
Most important, what will happen to the rest of the country once we’ve spent years in a brain dead world ran by Obamer and his buddies? Will we become the beaten and dead like the citizens of Mass?
No offense to all citizens of Mass. My husband is from Mass but he got the damn hell out of there. He does tell me that there are lots of fine conservative citizens in Mass but I’ll tell Freerepublic right now like I tell him...all we see are the Kennedys, the fine, fine Ted, John Kerry and, of course, the well-speaking Barney Frank.
SOMEBODY’S ELECTING THESE PEOPLE!
CT too, depending on how you count Joe Lieberman.
See post 44
Kirk's just a placeholder till the Kennedys get done fighting over who gets the seat. Who was the guy that held the seat open for Ted in the first place until he was old enough? Was it this very Senate seat?
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