No, it means that just because you get to vote for a candidate doesn’t necessarily mean it is a representative government. If you a limited on who you get to vote for because of strong arm tactics of a leader, media, or a broken political machine that limit who can viably run for office then it is not a representative government. Obama spent at least a good portion of a billion dollar on running for president. Not to mention what the advocacy groups and MSM spent on supporting him. A person who is not part of a political system simply would have s snowball chance in hell to do that.

As I already stated I support special election. For you to pretend I make claims about you for supporting that is way off base. My problem with you on this issue is you want to take away the State’s right to choose how they fill an empty vacancy. Stalin came up because your statement that I listed sounded like you think that state interest and people interest are one and the same. Simply not true.

As for the Senate being a federal office, I think davod already cover that.

Coleman? What'd he do, other than present serious challange to Franken?

He was accused of ethics violations for taking vacations and discounted rent from companies seeking his favor. He was also tied (indirectly) to Ted Steven's money troubles.

He's not squeaky clean, but it wasn't like there was $90k in cash in his freezer either.

Coleman? What'd he do, other than present serious challange to Franken?

Hmmmm, Bit... do you read the news?

Can you be any more obvious? I think not.

Well bit, you are the one who picks his demons from only one side of the aisle, not me.

Gee bit, I can not help but notice that you do not make note of Coleman, Vitter and Craig... coincidence? I think NOT.

Coleman? What'd he do, other than present serious challange to Franken?

And as for Vitter and Craig, they're already dealt with, their fate secured. Unlike Johnson and Rangel, for example.

Can you be any more obvious? I think not.

I haven't seen the proponents of the special election address the expense concerns.

Those concerns are a red herring because House vacancies already require a special election to fill. If it's too expensive for a Senate seat, it would presumably be too expensive for a House seat, which are more numerous and would likely be vacant more often.

Perhaps a better system would be to keep the seat empty until the next scheduled election

Thereby leaving the unfortunate state with only half the representation of every other state in the Senate.

I agree that the gubernatorial appointment system is far from perfect, but it's not immediately obvious to me that an election would produce a significantly different result. A special election in Illinois would have led to a Democrat senator who would vote for the caucus 90+% of the time. Why blow millions of dollars to achieve the same result as the one we have? Just to make people feel better?

Perhaps a better system would be to keep the seat empty until the next scheduled election, thereby discouraging senators from running for president. It would have saved us from a few horrid options last year.

Steven Taylor, Nate Silver, and Alex Knapp are all on-board with an amendment proposed by Sen. Russ Feingold to the U.S. Constitution to strip governors of their power to make long-term “temporary” appointments to the Senate. Since Feingold hasn’...

The Senate was set up to represent the states, as opposed to the people, in the Constitution. Sorry, Steve. There is a difference. Prior to the Constitution, the individual states were essentially individual countries; the Federal government was very much like NATO, w/o executive or judicial branches or even their own army. The Federal government had no authority over the individual states until after the Constitution was ratified; all authority, finances, even their armies were supplied by the states through the Continental Congress. Because the House of Representatives overwhelmingly favored the large population states, the Senate was set up to equalize the smaller states' power somewhat.

In spite of the 17th Amendment, individual states still have the right to chose how their vacant Senate seats are filled. I believe it should remain that way, but reasonable people can disagree.

Now if we can only be reasonable when dooing so. . .

Feingold's proposal is merely to remove that exception, it doesn't substantially change the nature of the Senate or the rights of state governments.

And on a more personal note, when I bring up something like an amendment, specifically by number, in the course of an argument, you can safely assume that I am familiar with it's content.

AMENDMENT XVII
Passed by Congress May 13, 1912. Ratified April 8, 1913.

Note: Article I, section 3, of the Constitution was modified by the 17th amendment.

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures.

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

This amendment shall not be so construed as to affect the election or term of any Senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of the Constitution.

Bullshit.

why not cancel government and have the people fight over how to run the state or country.

Prior to the 17th amendment, he was a representative of the state government within the federal government. Thus the reason why every state has an equal number of Senators, because every state is equal in the union, regardless of size.

After the 17th amendment, he became a representative of the people of a certain geographic region that varied in size from Senator to Senator, thus making the proportion of votes in the Senator to constituents of the Senator unequal. The result of this is to say that the entire population of Rhode Island is equal to the entire population of California

Today, for better of for worse, a Senator is a representative of the population of their state, not of the state government itself, so having their replacements elected by the population and not by the government is hardly a new infraction on the rights of the state. Like I said at the beginning of this thread, this is the logical conclusion of the 17th amendment.

You do understand that that is a rather substantial advantage, yes?

I just checked Senator Murkowski's Bio. She does seem to have done a little bit more than sit at home waiting for daddy to call. She was also elected for a six year term in 2004.

davod,

The issue is not whether she was qualified. The issue is whether or not it is kosher for daddy to be able to simply hand his Senate over to his daughter. Why it wouldn't be preferable to allow the voters to make this decision is a mystery to me.

We live in a Republic. States rights should not be abstract.

I will admit, that this is a pet peeve of mine, but I really don't think that you (and others in this thread) have any idea what you actually mean when you say "we live in a Republic."

There is absolutely nothing about the existence of states in our system that really has much of anything to do with being a "republic" (which can mean many things, but mainly in this context means sovereign power derived from the citizenry).

Yes, we have federalism, but that is not in any way an inherent state of being for a republic. We could still be a republic and erase all the state boundaries and have a unitary state (like, say, France, which is also a republic, and yet has centralized policy-making in the national government).

It is true that we do not have a direct democracy where everyone votes on everything--such a creature really has never existed. Instead, we have a representative democracy, sometimes called an indirect democracy, sometimes called a republican democracy, but in basic terms is rightly called simply democracy.

But even if I concede that "we are a Republic" that has nothing to do with what powers should, or should not, belong in the hands of states.