CABL Forum - Bend the rules?

No this is BREAKING them. And outright hypocritical move on the dems to get their way. No way they want to play fair. They want what they want and they don't care about process or rules. It is kings and queens in their eyes. They even admit it. Do we really want these kind of people in our government?

Despite an uproar earlier this year over the gubernatorial appointment of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate, Democrats in Massachusetts are considering the political windfall of giving Gov. Deval Patrick authority to appoint a replacement for Sen. Edward Kennedy.

A state senator told the Boston Globe Tuesday that Senate President Therese Murray is now open to the idea of giving Patrick the power to appoint a temporary successor to Kennedy.

"She is listening to the members and keeping an open mind," state Sen. Robert O'Leary, a Democrat, told the newspaper. "I am full steam ahead and she understands that is fine with it."

O'Leary is one of three senators urging Patrick, Murray and House Speaker Robert DeLeo to heed a request by the cancer-stricken Kennedy to change state law, which currently requires the governor to call an election within 145 to 160 days of receiving a resignation letter from a departing senator.

Kennedy penned a poignant letter last week urging the leaders to change the law requiring a special election. In a joint statement last week to The Boston Globe, which first reported news of Kennedy's letter, both Murray and DeLeo were noncommittal.

A legislative committee co-chairman overseeing a bill that would enact the change admitted to the Boston Herald Monday that the move is aimed at keeping a Democrat in the seat.

"I want to make sure that as a Democrat we have a Democratic voice in there for the five months that it might be vacant," said Rep. Michael J. Moran, who chairs the legislative Election Laws Committee, told the newspaper.

Asked whether he would support the change if Republican Mitt Romney were still governor, Moran laughed and said, "Of course there's a political side to this."

Deliberation over the plan comes as Congress considers an overhaul of the nation's health care system, a life cause of Kennedy's. While Democrats hold a potentially filibuster-proof margin in Congress, the outcome of a health care reform bill could hinge on a single vote and some moderate Democrats have been wavering.

The 77-year-old Kennedy has been convalescing at his homes in Washington and in Hyannis Port, as well as a rental property in Florida, but his absence from this month's funeral on Cape Cod for his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, prompted a flurry of questions about his own health.

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby is calling for Kennedy to resign, arguing that if the "absentee senator" truly believes the state should have two voices, then he should retire and allow the political process to move forward.

Kennedy's letter acknowledged the state changed its succession law in 2004 to require a special election within five months to fill any vacancy. At the time, state legislative Democrats -- with a wide majority in both chambers -- were concerned because then-Gov. Romney had the power to directly fill a vacancy that may have been created by the departure of Democratic Sen. John Kerry, who was running for president.

"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 wrote to the state leaders.

Kennedy suggested in the letter that the governor ensure the fairness of any appointment to replace him by seeking an "explicit personal commitment" his appointee will not seek the position on a permanent basis.

Patrick kept his hand close to the vest in a statement last week.

"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," he said.

Patrick was the top civil rights official in the Clinton administration, and he has argued about the importance of the public vote. But last fall he noted more than 40 other states fill congressional vacancies by gubernatorial appointment. He also cited the state's deteriorating fiscal condition as one argument to skip a special election and empower the governor to fill vacancies.

"These are always sensitive calls, but there are sensitive calls and decisions that governors have to make," he said in December.

The appointment of Burris by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the seat vacated by President Obama raised concerns last winter about gubernatorial appointments to the U.S. Senate. Blagojevich is facing felony charges related to pay-for-play schemes. Burris testified in an affidavit to a grand jury that he had offered to help Blagojevich's re-election in exchange for the appointment before rescinding the offer, realizing it would not be legal or ethical.

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Bend the rules?