Chris Bowers lays out the case for a Constitutional Amendment that would eliminate the power of governors to fill Senate vacancies -- a process that has become rife with corruption and elitism.
The top political story over the past week has been a corruption case surrounding the appointment of a Senator to Barack Obama's vacant seat in Illinois. At the same time, a woman whose family lineage is her primary qualification to be a Senator has begun a "public" campaign to reach out to local political elites using Joe Lieberman's "fixer" in order to secure the seat. Earlier, a long-time aide to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden was picked to serve his Senate seat. In 2010, Biden's seat is expected to be filled by his son, Beau Biden. In the coming days, Representative John Salazar will be considered one of the leading candidates to be appointed to his brother's now vacant seat in Colorado.
There is an endemic problem of dynasties and elitism in our political process. The power of Governor's to appoint vacant Senate seats is one of the more egregious examples of this. The four examples we are looking at right now are not isolated incidents, either. Six years ago, former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski appointed his daughter to fill his vacant Senate seat. Two years before that, when Mel Carnahan died in a plane crash, his wife, Jean Carnahan, served two years in the Senate to replace him. The previous year, Lincoln Chafee was appointed to serve when his father died unexpectedly.
rest at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/12/16/172311/33/470/673803
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