Feingold, Dreier push for special elections

Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold (D) and
California Rep. David Dreier (R) pressed their case for direct elections to
fill Senate vacancies on Sunday through a joint editorial intended to
boost the prospects of a bill Congress will consider in March.

Writing in the Chicago Tribune — in the home state of embattled Sen. Roland Burris, who was appointed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich before the governor was impeached —
Feingold and Dreier called gubernatorial appointments “an anachronistic
approach” and “undemocratic… making clear the need for a change in
the process.”

{mosads}The election of President Barack
Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, and their resulting Cabinet choices,
have created Senate vacancies in Illinois, New York, Delaware and
Colorado. But Feingold and Dreier said putting sole appointment power in the
hands of a state’s governor is simply too autocratic.

“The people of Illinois know
this all too well, as the scandal that led to Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment as
governor has laid bare the abuses that can happen when one person has the sole
authority to appoint a U.S. senator,” Feingold and Dreier wrote. “But
even the Senate appointments in New York, Colorado, Delaware and New Hampshire—
at least, before Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) decided to stay in the Senate—shared
a defining characteristic: These are decisions being made solely by the
powerful, without the consent, or even the input, of the people.”

Feingold and Dreier are uniquely
positioned to press their case: Feingold chairs the Senate’s Constitution
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, while Dreier is the ranking Republican
on the House Rules Committee. A Feingold aide said the Wisconsin senator plans
to hold subcommittee hearings next month on the bill.

Specifically, Feingold and Dreier
called for a constitutional amendment that preserves direct elections for
Senate vacancies. Both said they do not take the notion of a
constitutional amendment lightly, but insisted it is appropriate.

“Our proposed amendment is simple. It states: ‘No person shall be a
senator from a state unless such person has been elected by the people thereof.
When vacancies happen in the representation of any state in the Senate, the
executive authority of such state shall issue writs of election to fill such
vacancies,’ ” Feingold and Dreier wrote.

Acknowledging that several
states already have laws requiring special elections, Feingold and Dreier
noted that only five states — Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Oregon, Massachusetts
and Alaska — reserve some form of public input into Senate appointments.
Both men also acknowledged the high cost of special elections — a factor often
cited by critics — but said “the cost of losing the public’s confidence
in Congress is too high to let this situation continue.”

“The events of the past few months have given this effort new momentum,
with a bipartisan group of House and Senate members sponsoring our
amendment,” Feingold and Dreier wrote. “Change is never easy, but it
is often necessary… The time has come to finish the job and ensure that
anyone who wants to represent the people must be elected by the people.
Americans are more than ready to choose everyone who will represent them in
Congress.”

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn said at the National Governors Association in Washington on Saturday that if Burris resigns, he would focus on getting state law changed to allow a special election to fill the vacancy.