Senate

In 2010, John Thune will face his first re-election campaign since unseating Tom Daschle in 2004. His seat is considered one of the safest of all incumbent Republicans. This is helped along by the fact that he has no challenger in sight.

By Dave Lindorff

As promised, Sen. Russ Feingold introduced a Constitutional Amendment requiring special elections to fill Senate vacancies.

SECTION 1. 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.

Of course serious consideration of Constitutional Amendments occurs rarely. So if this "train" is really moving, this would be an excellent time to add some "cars." Here are some ideas:

* Direct election of Presidents; abolish the Electoral College. This has been proposed at various times in our history, most recently by President Jimmy Carter. And it fits perfectly with Feingold's language. We just need a section like this:

As the swearing-in day for Congress approaches, we have an unusual number of vacancies in the Senate that require gubernatorial appointments:

• IL: President-elect Obama's open seat is supposed to be filled by Gov. Blagojevich, but U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald overheard some explosive phone conversations while listening for other crimes
• DE: Vice President-elect Biden's open seat is being filled by a 2-year placeholder until Biden's son Beau completes a tour of duty in Iraq
• NY: Secretary of State-nominee Clinton's open seat is coveted by America's semi-official princess, Caroline Kennedy
• CO: Secretary of Interior-nominee Salazar's open seat was just filled by Gov. Bill Ritter, who appointed Michael Bennet

In their own way, each of these vacancies presents another reason why the Senate should be abolished.

On 11/19/08 I proposed abolishing the United States Senate since it is hopelessly useless.

Discussing Ted Stevens' lobbyist cronies, Christy offers another reason for abolition:

Unlike other progressive bloggers, I wasn't the least bit surprised when Senate Democrats let Joe Lieberman keep his Homeland Security chair. Why? Because the last eight years of blogging have painfully taught me that all Senate Democrats are worthless. (My only real surprise was that 13 Democratic "mavericks" voted against Joltin' Joe.)

I first learned this lesson on January 6, 2001, when the Senate and House met in joint session to count the Electoral College votes from the 2000 election. Democrats.com worked closely with the Congressional Black Caucus, led by Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, to challenge Florida's 25 electors as illegitimate because 175,000 votes were never counted due to the Felonious Five on the Supreme Court.

The event was made famous by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 911. Hastings filed his legal challenge as planned. But under the law, he had to be joined by one - just one - Senator. And despite our heroic efforts, not a single Democratic Senator was willing to join the Congressional Black Caucus in their challenge. CBC Members rose in turn to second Hastings' motion, but they were all ruled out of order by outgoing Vice President Al Gore because no Democratic Senator would co-sponsor.