Massachusetts Two Step

[Vandiablo]

Since the current governor of Massachusetts is a Democrat, the MA legislature is contemplating changing their Senate replacement law back (to how it was before Mit Romney) quickly to allow the governor to appoint a Kennedy replacement.

That's different from what Kennedy was promoting, IIRC. Didn't he advocate keeping the special election, but instead of having no senator in the interim, appointing someone by governor until the special election? (Hey, wasn't it customary for the dead guy's wife to take his seat? or was that the House only?) Maybe it's easier to revert to an old system rather than write up a new one.

Seems as though Kennedy's method makes the most sense. You're just whining about the fact that they're more likely to implement it under a Democrat. Ho hum.

I am sure you would have been whining about Romney being gov in the first place if he had been a Democrat and Democrats were only 15% of the state.

(I thought it was supposed to be liberals that were the whining ones. Not turning left on us, areya?)

For me it smacks of a capricious abuse of the system to maintain power, and not just for Massachusetts, but for implementing a filibuster proof majority in the Federal Senate. Even though there are perhaps 15% of the citizens of the State registered as Republicans, even the remote chance of losing total power by democratic means motivates the tyrannical to seize the power from the whimsy of mere citizens.

For me, it pales in comparison to redrawing districts in ridiculous ways in order to attain a Permanent Republican Majority. And yet when ol' Tom the Hammer did that, it was his God-given right, halleleuyeehah.

Abuses by the GOP are scary to me because the GOP is much more a lockstep, top-down, centralized organization fully willing and capable of transitioning us to a theocracy. Theocracies are scary because of their millenia-long tradition of tying suspected dissenters to a pole and setting them on fire. The Democrats, and the American left in general, are not centralized, despite your paranoid persecution fears, and can't even agree on relatively mundane things like health care.

Things like health care policy can simply be reversed by fair elections. If a health bill is passed, if people don't like it, the new Congress can countermand it. However, if you fill up the Justice Department with partisans, then all elections will go your way, and your party's policy can be written in stone.

I shed no tears for thee.

Conservative commentators used to talk about the left's "culture of victimhood" or somesuchcarp. Watch the events these days and it's the conservatives whining about being victims. And most of the carp is made up. That crazy Congresswoman (not a Senator, surely?) from Minnesota would be funny to watch except that she has a vote and that her stupidity rings true in too many ears. Maybe she could be Palin's VP running mate!! ooooo I can dream....

-V