Ailing Kennedy seeks quicker Senate succession

Sen. Ted Kennedy speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in a file photo. (REUTERS/Jim Young)

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, terminally ill with brain cancer, has asked state legislative leaders to change the law and let Gov. Deval Patrick appoint a temporary replacement upon his death.

Under current law, the seat would be empty until a special election could be held 145 to 160 days later, but the 77-year-old Democrat senator sent a letter to Patrick, State Senate President Therese Murray and State House Speaker Robert DeLeo asking the governor be allowed to appoint an interim U.S. senator, should one be needed, rather than wait up to five months for a special election.

A spokesman for Kennedy said on Thursday the letter was not related to any deterioration in his health.

Senator Kennedy has been a lifelong supporter of revamping the nation’s healthcare system, but his absence from the debate and public life in recent months has raised speculation that he will not be well enough to cast a vote when the time comes, according to New York Times, Reuters and Boston Globe reports.

Democrats need Massachusetts' two senators to muster 60 votes in the U.S. Senate, which is crucial to blocking any Republican maneuvers to stall the legislation, Reuters pointed out.

Democratic votes will be crucial to passing the healthcare legislation that is the subject of intense Congressional (and national) debate, and if Kennedy were to die before the vote, his seat would likely be vacant as per the current law.

Patrick and legislative leaders have yet to comment on the senator’s request to appoint an interim senator rather than wait for a special election.

“It’s typical of Ted Kennedy to be thinking ahead and about the people of Massachusetts, when the rest of us are thinking about him,” Patrick said in a statement.

In a joint statement, DeLeo and Murray said: "We have great respect for the Senator and what he continues to do for our Commonwealth and our nation. It is our hope that he will continue to be a voice for the people of Massachusetts as long as he is able."

Massachusetts state law allowed the governor to appoint a temporary replacement for a Senate seat until 2004, when Democrat Sen. John Kerry was running for president and the Democratic-controlled Legislature wanted to prevent then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, from naming a replacement if Kerry won the presidency, the NYTs reported.

In his letter, Kennedy, who has held his seat for 47 years, wrote that he supported the new law but added, “I also believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election.”

Kennedy also asked that Mr. Patrick “obtain, as a condition of appointment of the interim Senator, an explicit personal commitment not to become a candidate in the special election."

Kennedy "wanted to ensure that whomever received that appointment did not have any head start or advantage in the special election," his spokesman said.

Although the letter was delivered Tuesday, it was dated July 9.

Kennedy was diagnosed with a virulent brain tumor in May 2008 and for most of this year has stayed away from Washington and the public eye. He has spent the summer at his home on Cape Cod and occasionally has been spotted sailing with family members, according to news reports.

He did not attend the public funeral last week of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, and didn't travel to Washington to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Obama.

Sources: New York Times, Reuters, Boston Globe
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved

A typical day in Congress...

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Deconstructing Gov. Sarah Palin's resignation

Crowds turn out for Gov. Sarah Palin, but ethics complaints, political difficulties and a family that became tabloid targets have taken a toll, friends say. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

When Sarah Palin announced she was resigning as governor of Alaska, I had a lot of fun at her expense because of the wacky speech she gave that day and because, well, you know, it's her. (See Bubbly Palin quits Alaska via incoherent speech, posted July 3.)

As the fog clears, intelligible information about what led to her resignation has emerged (thank god!). The following New York Times article, in my opinion, does an excellent job at explaining what Palin failed to explain when she made the surprising announcement.

Palin's Route to Resignation: Missteps and Ignored Advice

By Jim Rutenberg and Serge F. Kovaleski
Published: July 12, 2009

This article was reported by Jim Rutenberg from New York and Serge F. Kovaleski from Wasilla and Anchorage, Alaska. Jo Becker reported from New York and Kim Severson and William Yardley from Wasilla and Anchorage.

ANCHORAGE — In late March, a senior official from the Republican Governors Association headed for Alaska on a secret mission. Sarah Palin was beset by such political and personal turmoil that some powerful supporters determined an intervention was needed to pull her governorship, and her national future, back from the brink.

The official, the association’s executive director, Nick Ayers, arrived with a memorandum containing firm counsel, according to several people who know its details: Make a long-term schedule and stick to it, have staff members set aside ample and inviolable family time to replenish your spirits, and build a coherent home-state agenda that creates jobs and ensures re-election.

Like so much of the advice sent Ms. Palin’s way by influential supporters, it appeared to be happily received and then largely discarded, barely slowing what was, in retrospect, an inexorable march toward the resignation she announced 10 days ago.

Ms. Palin had returned to her home state from the presidential campaign as one of the hopeful prospects in her struggling party, even if she had much to prove to her detractors. Standing before the Legislature in January, she vowed to retake her office with “optimism and collaboration and hard work to get the job done.”

But interviews in Alaska and in Washington show that a seemingly relentless string of professional and personal troubles quickly put that goal out of reach.

Almost as soon as she returned home, the once-popular governor was isolated from an increasingly critical Legislature. Lawmakers who had supported her signature effort to develop a natural gas pipeline turned into uncooperative critics.

Ethics complaints mounted, and legal bills followed. At home Ms. Palin was dealing with a teenage daughter who had given birth to a son and broken up with the infant’s father, a baby of her own with special needs and a national news media that was eager to cover it all.

Friends worried that she appeared anxious and underweight. Her hair had thinned to the point where she needed emergency help from her hairdresser and close friend, Jessica Steele.

“Honestly, I think all of it just broke her heart,” Ms. Steele said in an interview at her beauty parlor in Wasilla, the Beehive.

Yet to the dismay of some advisers, Ms. Palin dived into the fray, seeming to relish the tabloid-ready fights that consumed her as the work of the state at times went undone....

To read the rest of this article go to Palin's Route to Resignation: Missteps and Ignored Advice, published by The New York Time on July 12.