Ted Kennedy, recently hit with a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor, isn't going anywhere yet. And we hope the senator is able to serve out his full term, which runs through 2012.
But Massachusetts politics being what it is, speculation has already turned to what might happen should the senator resign for health reasons or worse, pass on.
Once, Massachusetts governors held the power to fill Senate vacancies until the next general election. But in 2004, Sen. John Kerry was the Democratic nominee for president, and the prospect of Kerry's vacant seat being filled by an appointment by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney so unhinged state Democrats, they changed the rules. Over feeble Republican opposition, they rammed through a law that required a special election be held to fill vacancies in the Senate.
This was a blatantly political move to keep Romney from appointing a Republican to the Senate. But the Democrats, of course, couched their power grab in high-sounding rhetoric about making the process more democratic and giving the people the power to choose their own representatives.
Now, with Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick in office, some Democratic legislators are not so concerned about the people's right to select their own representatives. Why take the risk, however slight, of losing Kennedy's seat to a Republican in an election when they can have Patrick appoint one of their own?
House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi bluntly told this newspaper this week that political considerations, not democracy, are all that matter, and he would support restoring the appointment power to the governor.
The irony in all this is the manner in which Ted Kennedy came to acquire his Senate seat. In December 1960, having just been elected president, John F. Kennedy resigned from the Senate. At John Kennedy's request, Gov. Foster Furcolo appointed Kennedy family friend Benjamin Smith of Gloucester to the seat. Smith agreed not to run in the next general election in 1962, when Ted would be 30 and constitutionally old enough to serve in the Senate. Ted Kennedy won the election in 1962 — and every election for the seat since.
This seat belongs to the people of Massachusetts. Should it become necessary to fill it ahead of schedule, the decision on who will serve in the Senate should be theirs.
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