Free Republic

Mark Murray writes: The Charleston Daily Mail (WV) reports that GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won't run in the special election for Robert Byrd's Senate seat, side-stepping what would have been a competitive contest against Gov. Joe Manchin (D), who is running for the seat.

Gov. Joe Manchin is tapping his former chief counsel and a member of a prominent West Virginia family, Carte Goodwin, to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Democratic officials told The Associated Press on Friday. Three officials familiar with the governor's pick spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment ahead of an official announcement. ...The 36-year-old Goodwin, a Charleston lawyer, would hold the seat until November. That's when the governor wants general election voters to decide who will serve the final two years of Byrd's term. The Legislature has...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia's attorney general says Gov. Joe Manchin can put the late Robert C. Byrd's Senate seat on the ballot this November. Manchin requested a legal opinion from Attorney General Darrell McGraw, who issued it Thursday.

The death of West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd (D) will trigger a fierce battle to replace him, although the timing of that race remains an open question. West Virginia law states that if there is a Senate vacancy more than 2 1/2 years before the incumbent's term ends, a special election would be called for this November. That 2 1/2-year mark is July 3 -- four days from now. But, as the Post's Paul Kane notes, the language of the law is unclear as it sets up a schedule that would begin the special election process after the "primary next."...

With the death early Monday of Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D), West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III (D) must select an interim replacement for a legend who many in the state and elsewhere consider one of a kind. A quirk in West Virginia's laws appears to state that the replacement will likely hold the seat for the remainder of the late senator's record ninth term, through 2012; therefore, Byrd's death would not impact the partisan makeup of the chamber, nor would it directly impact the pending 2010 elections. However, there is some ambiguity in the law that has left some...