Ted Kennedy's Senate Seat about to be Filled

As I previously reported, the Massachusetts House voted to give the governor the right to appoint someone to fill Ted Kennedy's senate seat, well, now the Massachusetts Senate has voted the same way, clearing the way for Governor Deval Patrick to make an appointment. 

This is why people hate politicians.  This kind of dirty, corrupt, crap that Ted Kennedy endorsed in life.  For a bit more history on this law, look here.  Basically, Ted Kennedy had the law changed 5 years ago to help the Democratic Party, and now it's being changed back for the same reason.  Ted Kennedy had been fighting to change the law back before he died, in anticipation of his empty senate seat causing a change in the current fillibuster proof majority.

Bills without a 2/3 majority reportedly take 90 days to go into effect under Massachusetts Law.  Massachusetts has found a work around and the seat is expected to be filled by the end of the week.  Apparantly Democrats can have it both ways. 

Democrats Attempt to Ignore the Law - Ted Kennedy Bending the Rules Postmortem

According to this article, lawmakers are thinking Vicki Kennedy would be a good choice to fill Ted Kennedy's seat in the interim period before a special election is held to elect a permanent senator. One problem with this is that she doesn't want to do it. Not only does she not want to do it, but she is not qualified to do it. She has no experience beyond being married to Senator Kennedy.

The second problem with this proposal is that the law does not allow it. This issue is brushed over in the article with a mention that Ted Kennedy was trying to change the law before he died. It conveniently neglects to mention the history of the bill. As I have explained before, the law which didn't allow an interim appointment was created by Ted Kennedy. He changed the Massachusetts law, which previously allowed the governor to appoint an interim senator, in anticipation of John Kerry winning the presidential election. The purpose behind the law change was to prevent then governor, Mitt Romney, from being able to make a Republican appointment.

Ted Kennedy's politically motivated law came back to bite the democratic party in the ass. The truth is that universal healthcare is a very tough sell. They need all the votes they can get. Once again, for purely political reasons, the democrats want to change the law to benefit their party. It reeks of corruption.