Posted on 09/16/2009 10:56:27 AM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
The Obama White House has left the sidelines and jumped in with both feet as Massachusetts lawmakers debate whether to change current law and appoint an interim U.S. Senator to replace the deceased Edward M. Kennedy.
FOX News has learned Senior White House adviser David Axelrod called the president of the Massachusetts Senate on Monday to lobby for the law change to fill Kennedy's Senate seat until the Jan. 19 special election is held.
Axelrod called Therese Murray to discuss the matter, Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton confirmed to FOX late Tuesday.
Burton said Axelrod was "checking in" with Murray, but Democratic sources say the call was designed to underscore White House interest in seeing Massachusetts law changed and an interim Senator appointed as crunch-time approaches in the health care debate.
In addition to his closeness to Obama, Axelrod also has deep ties to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. The governor wants the Legislature to give him power to appoint Kennedy's successor. Axelrod's leverage may prove useful to Patrick in this regard.
The Obama White House wants and needs as many Democrats as it can get for health care. An interim appointment would raise its number of Democrats available on a daily basis to 59. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia is ill and rarely present for Senate debate and votes.
Two names continue to surface as Kennedy's replacement: former Kennedy aide and former DNC Chairman Paul Kirk, and former Massachusetts Governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
No, we’ve had enough yo-yo law. Let Massachusetts lie in the bed it made for Romney.
How about Chavez??
Pay to play?
I guess they really need that vote....if that is the case WE are winning!
Hey there, Hi there, Ho there!
It’s for the constituents doncha know!
Well, sure...but wouldn't the new appointee have to take some time to read and understand the bill, vet it out among their constituents, perhaps do a little cost analysis, and then decide whether or not to vote for any such healthcare bill?
Is Splash available?
Axelrod’s suggestion for appointment: Roland Burris.
Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. This is pure power politics to make the law a living thing twisted to benefit the Democrats. They would argue just the opposite if there was the possibility of a Republican appointment - just like they did last time.
Obama will overrule Axelrod just this one time, since he is personal friends with an even more qualified gentleman, a Harvard man like himself by the name of Henry Louis Gates.
The democrat party defines the word hypocracy!
Ha-ha-ha!
How naive!
Don't you know that Democrats are born with an innate ability to divine that which is good, that which is wholesome, that which is necessary, that which is good for the children? And as such, they have no need of actually reading documents or listening to constituents.
You know this is good because we say it is.
It is only the knuckle-dragging, drooling, racist, homo-hating Republican neanderthals who put mindless stock into what documents actually say and mean.
Constitution? What's that?
Laws are for ‘little people’.
“Don’t you know that Democrats are born with an innate ability to divine that which is good, that which is wholesome, that which is necessary, that which is good for the children? And as such, they have no need of actually reading documents or listening to constituents.”
It’s true; I’ve seen it. The press their foreheads to the bill, hum, throw salt over their shoulders, and then they know what to do.
Meanwhile, critics who bother to read and disparage the bill are small-minded fear mongers who lie and hyperbolize for the gain of the insurance industry.
I keep checking Blago’s eBay page, but I don’t see the seat listed yet.
A cringe-inducing radio ad is airing in Boston, saying how Ted did so much for us and Mass. really deserves to have two senators at this critical time with votes on health care, etc.
The website for this effort, weneedtwo.org I think, says it’s sponsored by the SEIU union and Mass. ACORN. And John Kerry is pushing for the amendment.
Oh and an editorial in today’s Boston Herald says it’s shameless that one part of the amendment specifies that the interim senator BE THE SAME PARTY AS THAT OF THE ONE HE’S
REPLACING.
http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view/20090916have_they_no_shame/
>>The legislative discussion over an interim Senate appointment has gone from bad to appalling, turning into an exercise in truly gross partisanship.
It is no longer about merely assuring two votes for Massachusetts or making a Democratic president and Senate majority leader Harry Reid happy to have one more Democratic body in the Senate.
No, legislative drafters want to make sure even if the governorship should change parties and fall into the hands of - oh, horrors! - a Republican, that the seat would continue to be a Democratic one virtually in perpetuity.
Yes, the legislation on which members of the Election Laws Committee are currently being polled would specify that the governor would make the interim appointment and that ___“any person so appointed shall be of the same political party as the person vacating the office and thereby creating the vacancy___.”
Perhaps Republican contender Charlie Baker should be flattered that Democratic lawmakers are, well, planning ahead - not making the same “mistake” they made when they took the appointment power away from Gov. Mitt Romney.
Oh, and since they wisely discovered they really can’t legally block an appointee from running for the office, they’ll settle for a joint resolution expressing disapproval should that happen.
Lawmakers should be embarrassed to sign on to this - even more so now than in its original version.
That said, he died under the current law. Any change in the law will be met with resistance in MA by the Republican party as an ex post facto law. The changed law will apply the next time Kennedy dies.
Hypocrisy. Hypocrisy. This is pure power politics to make the law a living thing twisted to benefit the Democrats. They would argue just the opposite if there was the possibility of a Republican appointment - just like they did last time.
Disappointed that FOX did not publish an article with more depth on the history of this.
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