Posted on 01/05/2018 4:54:03 PM PST by jazusamo
A little more detail in post #20.
Thank you, good info!
I might have to announce that ConservaTeen Lawnmowing will be giving my friends (who help me mowing lawns) a raise...
Thanks for the analysis. Now I remember Akin.
From the people i know, McSuckface has a fart in the wind chance of re-election.
Go away. Go quietly. Go to hell.
Given everything that’s happened since, the whole Akin thing seems quaint, it would barely register now.
How was Carnahan illegalyl appointed? It was disgusting, but illegal?
My memories are vague, but I recall it was something like the deadline had passed to change names on the ballot, but some RAT judge overruled that and let the RATs put her name on the ballot anyway. If it had been a Republican candidate, they would have forced him/her to run as a write-in candidate.
https://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=103
No, the Widder “Jean” Carnahan was not elected, nor on the ballot, she was appointed by outgoing Gov. Roger Wilson (who succeeded to the job upon Mel’s death in Oct 2000).
Missouri election law was clear: a nominee must be a resident of the state in which they are running at the time of the election. Mel Carnahan was dead by the election, he was no longer residing in Missouri (he was either residing in heaven or hades, God’s judgment, but NOT Missouri). By that reckoning, his name should’ve been removed from the ballot, and only the name of John Ashcroft and any other 3rd party candidates remain.
I don’t know what the procedure was for write-ins, but if that was legally acceptable, the Democrats would then direct their supporters to write in Jean (not Mel) Carnahan, in which case, she’d have then been elected to the full 6-year term. If she had won in that manner, it should’ve been legal.
This was yet another example of the Republicans being gutless and not challenging a fraudulent election (along with Mary Landrieu & Loretta Sanchez in 1996).
Even if Missouri law didn’t specify that a U.S. Senator must be a resident of the state on Election Day, Article I of the U.S. Constitution sets such requirement. But it is simply false to claim that when an unqualified candidate finishes first in an election that the second-place finisher is entitled to the seat. There have been a lot of candidates who have won an election posthumously, and in every case that I’ve seen it has resulted not in the second-place finisher winning, but in a vacancy (within the past half century, it happened after the deaths of Congressmen Hale Boggs, Nick Begich and Patsy Mink, and it also occurred several times previously, plus in many non-congressional elections). So the Widder Carnahan was not appointed illegally or unconstitutionally.
We have the same specification in Tennessee. If you die immediately before the election, your name is stricken from the ballot, period. Now, a particular individual recognized that and murdered his State Senator opponent. Only because it was found out immediately and a quick, bipartisan effort to write in the widow’s name saved the seat. This was the legal way to do it, but I vigorously disagree in the case of Missouri: Mel Carnahan was dead, and therefore must be stricken from the ballot. He was no longer a legal resident of the state, period. A write-in candidacy was the only legal and ethical manner in which for Jean Carnahan to have assumed the seat. There was also the added concern of voter fraud surrounding the election in Missouri, which cost not only Ashcroft his seat, but Jim Talent the Governorship. All of that should’ve been enough to deny seating Mrs. Carnahan.
If it was too late to remove Mel Carnahan’s name from the ballot under MO law, then his name stays on the ballot. I’m sure that the Democrats would have preferred to replace his name on the ballot with that of his widow (new Gov. Wilson had promised to appoint the widow if Dead Mel won, but at least some voters wouldn’t countenance voting for a dead man), but the law didn’t permit them to do so.
And in any event, Ashcroft didn’t win the election, so he could not be seated on January 3. When there’s a vacancy in a Senate seat, the Constitution permits states to empower the governor to appoint a temporary senator (to serve until an election is held), and MO law so empowered Gov. Wilson. Wilson could appoint whomever he wished, so long as he or she met the constitutional qualifications to serve in the U.S. Senate (which Jeanne Carnahan met). An unfortunate turn of events, but not an illegal, much less unconstitutional, act. Ashcroft shouldn’t have taken such a long break from campaigning after Mel died.
No, I’m saying that because once he died in October, it was deemed too late to have a substitute candidate on the ballot and that since he no longer met state or federal requirements of being a legal citizen of the state, his name should be removed from the ballot. There should’ve been no Democrat nominee on the official ballot. They had ample time to mount a write-in candidacy for the widow.
My point here is simple: #1, Mel Carnahan being deceased, was not a legal candidate under either state/fed law. Since he was not a legal candidate, and was illegally kept on the ballot, any votes for him could not be counted as legitimate. #2, Since only the votes for legal candidates could be counted, that meant that (absent a write-in campaign for Jean Carnahan) Ashcroft would win because he had no Democrat opponent due to Mel Carnahan’s disqualification and it being too late to offer a substitute nominee on the Dem ballot. #3, Because Carnahan was illegally declared the winner when his candidacy was illegitimate due to death, there was no vacancy to be filled and therefore Gov. Wilson could not appoint anyone to the seat effective 1/3/2001.
I will continue to argue this point that this was both an illegal election AND illegal appointment. The only way in which it would not have been is if Mel Carnahan had been alive on Election Day, won the election, and died in the interim between November and January, in which case the Governor would then be empowered to make an appointment to the seat, with a special election to be held no later than November 2002.
Although laws vary from state to state on the process of replacing nominees due to whatever reason after a primary has been held, I would make the argument absent state law (as in the case of my state of TN, which requires a dead nominee be removed from the ballot, or MO), federal law would seem to indicate that this should be the policy for every state for Congress/Senate. If a nominee is deceased before a general election, rendering them a non-resident, they are no longer a qualified candidate and must be removed from the ballot and no votes for them counted.
By doing her best to ensure that her opponent was Todd Akin, the only GOP candidate she could possibly beat.
You are ignoring the multiple precedents of already dead people finishing first in an election, all of which (as far as I know) resulting in the dead person being declared the winner and a vacancy being declared. Besides the congressional examples that I provided, it has happened many times at other levels. Being unqualified for office means that one may not take the seat, not that the votes that one receives don’t count.
And neither the U.S. Constitution nor federal law require that candidates on the ballot be constitutionally qualified for the office. Yes, Article I requires that a Senator have been an inhabitant, on Election Day, of the state that he represents, but that us a requirement *to hold the Senate seat* (not to appear on the ballot), and the entity entrusted to enforce such requirement—the U.S. Senate, which is the “judge of the qualifications of its Members”—can only enforce the requirement by judging the Senator-elect unqualified and thus excluding him from the Senate. Each state has its own rules for ballot access, and some states even permit persons who admittedly are not natural-born citizens (or even U.S. citizens)’ to appear on the ballot as presidential candidates; you may recall that, in 2004 and 2008, the Socialist Workers Party nominated Roger Calero, a Nicaraguan immigrant who was a U.S. permanent resident but not a U.S. citizen (much less a natural-born citizen), as its candidate for president, and Calero appeared on the ballot in dozens of states (nine states did exclude those who aren’t NBCs, and Calero was replaced on the ballot in those states by James Harris).
I’m not ignoring deceased individuals “winning” races, only that (with respect to federal races), that this be a disqualifier based on failure to meet residency requirements. We have strict requirements in TN based on this, and said votes DO NOT count, because the person is immediately removed from the ballot. It might not be fair to a given party, but it’s how it is. After all, the write-in option kept the murderer of the incumbent State Senator, the sole candidate in the race at that point, from winning the election.
As I also said, Republicans in 2001 should’ve vigorously contested the illegality and illegitimacy of the MO race and the appointment. But they refused to do it and let this individual occupy the seat for 2 years at the expense of their majority.
As for the example of the Socialist Workers Party candidate, he should’ve been summarily disqualified from the ballot.
As he said unfortunately the constitutional residency requirement is to serve not to merely to be on the ballot, which is up to the state.
I don’t see how they could have seated Ashcroft, he lost. Congress has never done that as far as I know and I don’t think that would be proper irregardless of this one circumstance where it would have benifited us.
As for what the law SHOULD be if I was writing it, I see is no reason why a candidate shouldn’t be able to be replaced no matter if the election is in a month or week or a day. I’d allow substitutions up to election day, including if need be keeping the old name on the ballot but letting a vote for the dead or withdrawn candidate count for the new nominee, as I believe was the case in Florida 2006 when votes for Foley counted for Joe Negron (I’m not sure if that included absentee ballots mailed before the replacement, early voting now presents an additional complication re late replacements).
I also think (though it just bit our a$$ in Bama) Senate specials should be required to take place promptly (ie a couple or 3 months, not 6 or 8 or 10) not at the next general election up to 2 years away.
That’s all up to the states though.
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