Kentucky continues to make (legal) changes to its election laws, and the latest one of these is something that other states should probably consider if they aren’t already doing so. Like most states, Kentucky allowed the Governor to appoint a replacement when one of its Senate seats becomes vacant under certain circumstances, depending upon the amount of time left until the next election. In 2021, the state legislature rolled back the Governor’s influence in selecting a replacement. Now, the GOP supermajority in the legislature has overridden Democratic Governor Andy Beshear’s veto and fully removed the executive branch from the process. In the future, they will hold special elections, with the winner serving the remainder of the term for the empty seat. (Redstate)
On Friday, a super-majority of Republican lawmakers in Kentucky overrode Democrat Governor Andy Beshear’s veto of a law that strips the state’s executive of any authority to appoint future U.S. Senate vacancies. The new law’s supporters claimed it was unrelated to recent concerns about the health of Republican Mitch McConnell, the state’s 82-year-old senator and minority leader of the U.S. Senate. With the Senate narrowly divided on partisan lines, the procedure for filling a vacancy has become increasingly crucial.
In 2021, Kentucky’s GOP lawmakers curtailed the governor’s independent authority to appoint a successor. Now, they have completely excluded the governor from any role in filling such vacancies. Under the new law, the state would hold a special election, and the winner would then serve the remainder of the unexpired term.
With this change, Kentucky will join North Dakota, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island as the only states where Governors are never allowed to appoint Senate replacements, with special elections being the only way to do so. Various states use a variety of formulas when it comes to gubernatorial appointments. Kentucky was already one of ten states that required the Governor to appoint a replacement from the same party as the previous incumbent. Leaders from the departed incumbent’s party would submit a list of three candidates from their party for the Governor to choose from. Now Kentucky will move straight to a special election to be held during the next statewide election unless the departed incumbent’s seat was already up for election at that time.
This is of particular importance to Kentucky since questions have been raised about the future of Senator Mitch McConnell. He has already announced his plans to step down as the Senate Minority Leader, though he claims that he still plans to run for another term. Kentucky is one of those rare states with a legislative supermajority held by one party (the GOP) and a governor from the other party. As already noted, Andy Beshear is a Democrat. It would be a dicey proposition to allow Beshear to appoint a Democrat to replace McConnell should his seat unexpectedly become vacant. There is a similar situation brewing in Kansas, though no Senate vacancies are currently anticipated there.
These replacement policies have long been seen as not being that big of a deal. Normally, the same party has held both the legislative majority and the governor’s mansion, so an unanticipated vacancy wouldn’t result in a seat being flipped. But that’s not the case everywhere these days. Both parties appear to be clinging to a vested interest in making sure that they hold on to a seat when one of their own suddenly departs.
But is that really the most democratic approach to these matters? I would argue that it’s not. Replacements for House members aren’t quite as big of a deal because they only serve two-year terms. But if we lose a senator during the first twelve months of their term, their replacement could be knocking around the upper chamber for five years or more without the voters ever having a say in the matter. Even if the replacement comes from the same party, that only reinforces the notion that all of the senators are little more than placeholders and assured votes for each side of the ongoing red vs. blue civil war. The system should be built upon the assumption of independent thinking meeting the needs of each state, whether it works out that way in practice or not.
This is a decision for each state to make, however, thanks to the 17th Amendment. That amendment could probably do with a fresh look as well, but the odds of ramming an amendment through these days seem tiny at best. Until one party or the other manages to build back to a supermajority in the Senate, we’ll probably continue to play the same shell game over and over again.