Procedure To Fill Senator Byrd's Vacant Senate Seat

[Staph]

According to the official statement of the West Virginia Secretary of State:

“The State Code is an interesting document. Within Chapter 3 that focuses on elections, there are several sections that determine how vacancies are filled.

“Section 3-10-3 states that for terms with more than two years and six months remaining, such as this one with Senator Byrd, the Governor will appoint a replacement who serves the unexpired term until a successor has been elected.

“But that election will not be the 2010 General election. Part of this same section of code, requires the candidate to have filed during the filing period. That filing period has already passed. There was a legal case in 1994 decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals that up held that position of requiring candidates to file during the filing period.

“That means the election for the unexpired term would be the next election cycle which would take place in 2012. Candidates will be nominated in the primary and elected in the general of 2012.

“That brings up an interesting situation. Because Senator Byrd’s seat would have been up for re-election in 2012, both the position for the unexpired term and full term will be on the ballot at the same time but are separate races. In fact it will be two separate elections. With the unexpired race being a special election because it would otherwise not have been on the ballot.

“The winner of the unexpired term would serve out the final five weeks or so until the new term of Congress starts in January of 2013. Had Senator Byrd’s term not run out in 2012 there would not have been this unique situation. It would have just been for the unexpired term."

Life is about to get truly interesting in West Virginia politics!

http://www.sos.wv.gov/news/topics/state-capitol/Pages/TennantStatementOnProcedureToFillVacantSenateSeat.aspx

[damntexdem]

1. Perhaps unlikely, but someone COULD be elected for a five-week term.

And then replaced by another elected for the full new term.

Somewhat amusing.

[davidinalameda]

2. seems fairly clear that whomever Manchin picks

will be there until January 2013

right?

[LiberalFighter]

4. His selection will hold the office until they have the election in 2012.

There will be two elections. One to fill the time from the 2012 election until January 2013. Second for the full 6 year term beginning January 2013.

[Staph]

5. That's close, but not precise.

Whoever Manchin picks takes over the senate seat. That person is guaranteed to hold the seat until election day 2012. On that day, there will be two elections for the senate seat -- an interim election to fill the seat from election day until January 3, 2013, and a permanent election to fill the seat beginning on January 3, 2013.

So we could potentially have one person serving from now until election day 2012, another from then until January 3, and a third serving from January 3 onward.


As I said, we live in interesting times. Rumor on the immediate replacement has centered around WV State Democratic chairman Nick Casey, and soon-to-be-out-of-a-job Congressman Alan Mollohan, who lost in his primary to a really conservative Democratic whack-job. Mollohan would be a great choice, except everyone knows that Gov. Manchin wants the job for himself, once his term ends in 2012, and Manchin is unlikely to appoint anyone who would like to keep the seat.

On the Republican side, I expect that Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito is salivating for the job. If she decides to stick to the House with her present seniority (extremely unlikely in my opinion), there is no other Republican well known enough or experienced enough to run for the job.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Not exactly well thought out when they enacted their law.

[Staph]

7. When the law was originally written,

there was less than six months between the primary and general elections. So saying that an interim election was required if the senator needed to be replaced more that two years and six months before the end of the term meant that there was time for both parties to chose a candidate in a primary before the general election in November.

The primary election date has been changing regularly in the last few decades, as the race to be the first primary after New Hampshire (and South Carolina and ...) heated up. The law never caught up. After all, this will be the third new senator representing the state of West Virginia since the election of November 1958 (Jennings Randolph was seated in an interim election to replace the recently deceased Matthew Nealy). Jay Rockefeller had been the junior senator since January of 1985.

[Oregone]

6. Is there a plan to fill the rest of the empty suits in congress?

[frazzled]

8. Great news--hopefully FinReg will be saved and ...

we get a Democrat (albeit it likely a conservative one) to sit in that seat for nearly two and a half years. I'm relieved.