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September 24, 2009
The Facts
Paul G. Kirk
Massachusetts lawmakers voted to give the governor the power to appoint a successor to the seat held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. After being granted the power, Democratic Governor Deval Patrick appointed Democrat Paul G. Kirk to fill the seat. Kirk says he will not seek the seat in the special election coming up in 2010. Whether he wants to or not, the decision was probably a move to appease the outraged Republicans in the state and around the country. But that does little good at the time.
My View
Last month I wrote this post when this first came on the national scene. What I said at that time was that lawmakers shouldn’t put in place any rules they may not want to live by in the future. But Massachusetts lawmakers obviously don’t worry about that; they simply change the rules as they go along to suit their current desires, much like many of our national lawmakers and most average citizens across the country does.
Massachusetts has one more test coming up in the special election shortly after the first of the year. In my former post I said they should throw out their partisan politics and teach the lawmakers a lesson if the Democratic controlled government reversed their 2004 decision and gave the Governor the power to appoint a replacement — I said they should vote in a Republican, if for no other reason than to send the lawmakers a lesson. Massachusetts voters, if you don’t then you must accept that you, too, will have to live by the rule you will make at that time. I don’t necessarily believe in ‘what goes around comes around’, but when it comes to politics, it usually does ‘come around’ sooner or later.
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Mass folks need to vote them all out next election. If legislators can just change the rules whenever they want, there’s nothing to reign them in.
I sure wouldn’t count on a politician to have the moral fortitude to do the right thing on his/her own. This case just proves my point.