If there's a special election for the Senate Seat in IL...

[asksam]

... it should be open to Democrats only. After all, had this whole mess not happened, only Democrats would have been considered for the job anyway. So, why should the Rethugs gain because of all this?

[opihimoimoi]

1. ooooo Good one.....I wonder if they would consider this...I do

[kevsand]

2. I don't see how you could possibly do that.

Especially since there is actually no guarantee that the selection would have been of a Democrat, only that the selection would have been made by a Democrat. To be perfectly representative of that circumstance then, the election would have to be open to any candidate, but only Democrats would be allowed to vote.

The problem with this is that Illinois has no official party registration process. You are what you say you are when you walk in and request the primary ballot, or file a nominating petition for election.

It is a shame that we risk losing the seat in an open election, but there really is no other way to do this and guarantee the openess and integrity of the process. This is what the party gets for supporting Blago in 2006.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. "there really is no other way to do this" -- wrong.

Blago resigns, the new Governor appoints a Senator.

[asksam]

5. True... but...

... we're working on the assumption that there is going to be an election (see the "IF" at the beginning of my OP).

[asksam]

4. I think it's safe to say....

... that corruption issues aside, there was virtually no chance at all that Blago would have picked a Rethug to fill the Senate seat. That being, there is no reason that we should have to risk the seat.

It should be easy enough to say that anyone who was registered as a Rethug prior to the date of vacancy is ineligible. Any potential viable Rethug candidate would have already run for or attained some office in the past, so that could serve as a "party registration" in the absence of an official one.

[kevsand]

11. Laws don't deal with "safe to say."

Legislation can't be based on chances. It inherently must be absolute, and if our intention is to recreate the previous circumstance through a different mechanism, that recreation must be absolutely accurate.

Besides which, the current state of case law in Illinois on party affiliation is so loose that there can't really be any legislation that depends on it.

There is no legal requirement currently that the replacement must be of the same party. It would be a huge mistake to create such a new requirement now.

[asksam]

14. But it's not going to be absolutely accurate...

... there is no way it could be. One method is by appointment, the other by election. They are inherently different. If you want to argue that an election in general is not called for, I can see the argument. But, if we *are* going to have an election, you can't say that it has to mimic the appointment process - but there is no way that it can.

[kevsand]

19. You are the one who said that it should mimic the process...

... in one particular instance, when you claimed that (because the appointee was likely to be a Democrat) the candidates should all be Democrats. So you apparently want to "mimic" that part, at least. But you're actually not coming close to even approximating it.

There is currently no legal requirement for the appointment to be from a particular party. Regardless of what the common practice may or may not have been, it has not been institutionalized or enshrined in the law. We should not change that now. In other words, since it was legally possible for the appointee to be from any (or even no) party, it should be legally possible for candidates in a special election to be from any party.

[theboss]

6. I think it should be for whites only

Cause that would be legal too.

[asksam]

7. Why?

I don't get it.

[theboss]

8. Clearly.....

Anyway, can they actually hold a special election? Is there a provision to do that if the governor is a shitheel? I assume that they still have to follow the process defined by the law.

[asksam]

10. I'm working on the assumption

that the matter is handled by state law. In other states (MA, for example), the law is that there must be a special election. The IL legislature can probably pass a law requiring an election now. And if it's doing so, they should mandate that only Dems can run since, as it is, only a Dem would have gotten the seat anyway.

[RB TexLa]

13. Nothing requires the governor to appoint a person of their own party

This idea is ridiculous.

[asksam]

16. I know he *could* have appointed a Rethug....

... and he could have claimed to have seen Martians in his back pocket. But we both (and everyone else in the country) knows that neither of those things was going to happen. Assuming he was clean, he *was* going to pick a Dem - I don't even think any Rethugs would have bothered applying.

[RB TexLa]

17. Then why waste the money on an election? Just let Mike Madigan choose who he thinks the governor

would have appointed and everyone can just vote yes or no and one yes vote put that person in office. But the law can't change any special election brought up under the law would only include candidates the current governor would have appointed had he been allowed to do so. Can't do it one way now and a different way in 50 years, now can we? Or should the law be changed if it's a republican who would have been appointing under the law you want to get rid of?

You either have the governor appoint someone or you have the people elect someone, you can't have some stupid morphed combination of both.

[ProfessorGAC]

20. I Think We Have To Pass A Law

I doubt the Dem led legislature will do that. It seems more likely that the other Dem powerbrokers will lean on him until he resigns, then Dan Quinn appoints the new Senator.
GAC

[kevsand]

22. Pat Quinn

[ProfessorGAC]

26. Duh!

My bad.
GAC

[derby378]

9. I want to be the next Senator from Illinois

So I currently live in Texas. Big deal. Rules never stopped Blago. Woo-hah!

Would I be such a bad Senator? I mean, seriously. :hi:

[LSK]

12. isnt that what Hillary did in 2000???

:hide:

[derby378]

15. Yeeee-haw!

I think this plan is a go! :woohoo:

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Not So Fast, Billy Ray!

If anyone is going to be randomly picked, it should be me! At least, i live here!
GAC

[derby378]

25. Well, there's that...

Thumb-wrestle you for the Senate seat? :hi:

[WI_DEM]

18. No, if they change the law and have a special election it has to be open to all parties just like

every other state. The corrupt governor ruined it for democrats. Hopefully Dems can field a strong candidate, but I think that no Chicago Dem will have a snowball chance in hell of winning.

[rvablue]

23. You can't have an election ONLY open to Dems, that would be a primary. n/t

[Orsino]

24. I think that maybe the Democratic Party should pay this price...

...for supporting a turd like Blagojevich. Dems have often benefited from Republican corruption--and maybe, just maybe, we will work to come up with a fairly honest Senate candidate someday.

Blagojevich is a symptom rather than the disease itself. It's the money, stupid--and we need to get serious about separating it from elected office.