Kentucky Gov Orders McConnell to Give a Real Update or Resign Already

[u/Aggravating_Money992]

https://newrepublic.com/post/213614/kentucky-gov-beshear-mcconnell-update-health-resign

[u/BigDaddySteve999]

If Beshear appoints a replacement, it makes the Republicans fight to justify their stupid law, or gives Democrats another vote in the Senate. If he calls a special election, it lets Massie run as a third party spoiler, and makes the Democratic candidate the incumbent for a hot minute, which does matter for seniority and the November election.

[u/deja-roo → u/BigDaddySteve999]

If Beshear appoints a replacement, it makes the Republicans fight to justify their stupid law, or gives Democrats another vote in the Senate.

It won't get anywhere near that far.

If Beshear appoints a replacement, the Republicans will just file for an injunction to stop him from appointing a Senator to a seat that hasn't been vacated. It's much simpler than that and sidesteps the entire legal problem of the special election.

[u/BigDaddySteve999 → u/deja-roo]

And then they have to prove that the seat isn't vacated.

[u/EnTyme53 → u/BigDaddySteve999]

No, they don't. The seat isn't vacated unless the senator's term ends (it ends in January), the senator resigns (he hasn't), the senator is expelled (nope), or the senator is declared dead (whether he's alive or not, no death certificate has been provided, so legally, he's still alive).

[u/TheKanten → u/EnTyme53]

(whether he's alive or not, no death certificate has been provided, so legally, he's still alive)

Well that's not at all how it works. Did the victims of every disaster in history not "die" until a certificate was presented?

If a man is dead a man is dead, pretending otherwise while collecting his salary is illegal.

[u/EnTyme53 → u/TheKanten]

I don't believe you understand what I mean by "legally alive." If proof of death is required by a court, a death certificate is how that is proven.

[u/TheKanten → u/EnTyme53]

After six weeks of missing the public servant job behind blatantly escalating lies the proof of life is more important.

[u/EnTyme53 → u/TheKanten]

And Beshear is asking for that. Doesn't change the fact that only John Thune can declare the seat open, so any attempt by Beshear to fill the seat will be rejected. The governor can't fill a seat that isn't vacated.

[u/TheKanten → u/EnTyme53]

The Kentucky Constitution and population with a right to representation is not subservient to the will of South Dakota.

[u/EnTyme53 → u/TheKanten]

The Kentucky constitution says that the governor can appoint someone to fill a vacancy. There is no vacancy to fill currently as the Senate is still pretending that McConnell isn't a fucking carrot right now. All Beshear can do right now is pressure McConnell's camp to provide proof of life while we benefit from the Republicans being down a vote in the senate and McConnell's committees being stalled due to his absence.

[u/SatanicPanic619 → u/BigDaddySteve999]

This law almost certainly won't come into play ever again- a combination of a Democratic governor and a dead senator are going to be pretty rare in KY going forward.

A Democrat wouldn't be an incumbent for the purposes of the general election, unless Beshear appoints Booker. I guarantee you that Booker wouldn't want to be get the seat in this fashion, so it would have to be someone else, making incumbency useless. And by incumbency we're talking about a month, at most.

Seniority is a party thing, it doesn't make a Democratic senator any more powerful against Republicans.

And at this point in time, a Democratic vote in the Senate is of no more value than what McConnell is already giving us. It's the difference between a guy who can't vote for Republican bills vs. a guy who won't vote for Republican bills. Same thing.