Um ... this is a good technical argument, but it does not address the basic premise that what the voters wants is what the voters should get. There is no question what the voter wants. They knew ahead of time that they would be voting for a dead man's wife. The appointment may be technically flawed, but for a judge to throw this out would require finding a serious problem. Technicality is probably not a serious enough problem to go against the electorate. Ern -----Original Message----- X-Loop: openpgp.net From: Jim Burnes [mailto:jburnes@savvis.net] Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 9:13 AM To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: A very brief politcal rant On Wed, 08 Nov 2000, William H. Geiger III wrote:
In <973697805.3a09730d4e448@webmail.cotse.com>, on 11/08/00
at 09:36 AM, brflgnk@cotse.com said:
If the citizens of Missouri chose to elect a deceased person as Senator, I think that's exactly what they should get. Leave the seat empty for two years.
Someone had brought up the Constitutionality of having a dead man on the ballot. The reasoning was that the deceased are no longer legally citizens and therefore do not meet the Constitutional requirements for office.
Even more significant is that a dead man cannot take the oath of office. If he can't take the oath of office he can't occupy the office. The governor only has the power to replace a senatoratorial position if the current office holder dies. Since Carnahan died before he took office, the office remains unfilled. The governor does not have power to appoint senators willy-nilly. The office must be held before it can be filled. The correct solution would be to hold a special election so that the public has a chance to know who they are voting into office. What the democrats are afraid of is that his wife might be less fit to hold that office than her husband in some democrat's minds (after debates etc). Here is a question? Would it be vote fraud to run one person's name on the ballot and replace him with someone else when he won? jim -- Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. -- Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural