Posted on 12/18/2006 8:10:40 AM PST by staytrue
I thought someone might like to do some research.
Has a governor ever appointed a senator of the opposite party as the governor ?
Does Hickel count? Was an R when he appointed Stevens to replace a D, but Hickel was on the AIP ticket when he ran for governor last.
The following example always sticks out in my mind:
Senator Thomas A. Burke (D-OH) was appointed by Governor Frank Lausche (D-OH) on October 12, 1953 to fill the seat vacated by Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH), who happened to be the Majority Leader at the time.
Burke went on to lose the special election held in 1954 to Senator George H. Bender (R-OH), who served out the rest of Taft's original term. In the 1954 election, the Republicans also lost control of the Senate to the Democrats.
The Dem. Governor of Ohio replaced the recently deceased and popular Republican Majority Leader with a Democrat, who was quickly breezed out of office roughly a year later by the electorate in OH who clearly wanted a Republican in the seat.
I can't recall any situation where an appointment shifted the balance of power in the Senate, however. It seems like the Jeffords situation was the first time it happened mid-term.
Thanks for the answer. Kind of scary since some of the Rinos are more Democratic than Republican and hope they just don't consider the same. Seems not right, but they when does Government do anything right.
I don't think there's anything wrong with these various independents promising to stand with the Democratic Party, so long as they're up front about it and the voters know what they're getting.
Lieberman would never have been elected if he hadn't promised to do so. Many Dem voters crossed lines to vote for this "independent", and did so knowing that it wouldn't change the leadership elections.
Any R that promised in a campaign to caucus with the Dems would be tossed out of the Party. No GOP money for their election. There's a huge difference between a moderate Republican having a different opinion on the issues and one who promises to vote for the opposition leadership.
I think that Hickel appointing Stephens to the Senate would count.
Hickel may have run with the AIP, but every commie newspaper in Alaska calls him a (R) that changed the laws in favor of Stevens.
The balance of power has been so (D) in recent decades that I do not know if the question of balance of power ever came up before Jeffords.
How undignified.
Calling Jack the Dripper.
Alaskan Rs have been rs for quite a while, sometimes becoming Libertarian, sometimes AIP, sometimes who knows what, and then shifting back to R as the political winds shift and the bluehairs of the Rs drift in confusion.
Well, fortunately, the law was not needed. But I wonder if a republican could simply change party to become a democrat - temporarily, of course?
I'm trying to remember that Dem Senator that died in Minnesota, where the funeral turned into a Democrat celebration, but I think a third party was nominated?
Closest thing I can think of is W campaigning for Arlen Specter.
The Senate has changed hands more often than the House has in the past 50 years.
However, a situation where the Senate was so close (i.e. either 50-50 or 51-49 in favor of the party opposite the President) so that one Senator's seat switching parties could tip things one way or the other has happened three times. First, a 50-50 split, but a change in Vice-Presidents tipped the balance of power from the Democrats to the Republicans in 2001. Later that year, Jeffords quit the Republican Party and caucused with the Democrats, which gave the Democrats a 50+1 to 49 majority. Third, when Senator Talent defeated Senator Carnahan in a special election in November 2002, and according to Missouri state law assumed the Senate seat as soon as the election was certified, which again gave the Republicans control with a 50 to 48+2 edge (remember at that time, another independent held Wellstone's old Minnesota seat).
Miller was an appointee only for a few months, after Coverdell died in July 2000. He won election to the remainder of Coverdell's term a few months later in the 2000 general election.
Jim Hodges (D) threatened to appoint a Republican or a nonpartisan placeholder to replace Sen. Strom Thurmond, who was not expected to make to the end of his term by most of his colleagues. As a Democrat governor in a conservative state, he probably felt it was best not to piss off his voters and appoint someone of the opposite party from Ol' Strom. Fortunately Thurmond made it to the end of his term, and it never came up. And Hodges lost anyway in 2002 to Mark Sanford!
No.
Don't bother looking after 1972. I already have and couldn't find any.
That might count for a governor appointing across party lines, but I really think what we want is an R appointing a D to replace a D and vice versa. I can't find any example of that ever happening, despite it being labelled a "tradition".
I tried to Google this, having heard what a huge research tool Google is. Well, it is partly that.
Wellstone. Ventura almost appointed a Dem, but after the celebr... I mean funeral, he was so disgusted that he appointed Independent Dean Barkley to fill the seat until Coleman took office that January.
How? They'd have no case.
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