Jan 17 2010
If Brown Wins, Interim Senator Kirk Is Immediately Fired
Whatever happens Tuesday, a legal reading of the MA laws regarding interim senators is clear: Interim Senator Paul Kirk is out of the Senate when the polls close Tuesday night, and therefore cannot vote on any legislation:
Appointed Senator Paul Kirk will lose his vote in the Senate after Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts of a new senator and cannot be the 60th vote for Democratic health care legislation, according to Republican attorneys.
…
But based on Massachusetts law, Senate precedent, and the U.S. Constitution, Republican attorneys said Kirk will no longer be a senator after election day, period. Brown meets the age, citizenship, and residency requirements in the Constitution to qualify for the Senate. “Qualification†does not require state “certification,†the lawyers said.
So, if Brown is elected then the entire liberal agenda now running amok in DC is stopped dead in its tracks. If that is not enough of a reason to get out and defeat Coakley and the Dems I don’t know what is.
President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Leader Reid created this backlash and now will get to see the results of their handiwork. It is amazing, but the people of Massachusetts are having their modern Tea Party. They can send a signal so loud and clear to DC that its magnitude will rock that city to its knees. This will be the election heard around the world.
I have this strong ‘to good to be true feeling’. Seriously concerned regarding shenanigans. Our win needs tsunami force to hold because these criminals will be going for broke to stop the authentic will being exercised.
If we win this B.O. is toast and America will be in a holding pattern for three more long years.
Like I started; seems to good to be true. But then again maybe my belief in God is not just magical thinking?
[…] suggests her opponent Scott Brown may actually be former Red Sox first basemen Bill Buckner, whose error at first base in 1986 largely cost the Red Sox a World […]
When I read the article that Paul Kirk’s job ends in less than three days, my first question was…can the democrats in MA get together tomorrow to pass another bill that would allow Paul Kirk to continue working past Tuesday?
I wouldn’t be surprised if those Democrats did just that as they did with Mitt Romney (John Kerry) and Deval Patrick (Ted Kennedy).
Typical Saul Alinsky tactics.
As far as the Health Care bill is concerned, it is completely irrelevant whether Brown wins or Kirk can vote. The Republicans in Congress remain impotent to do anything about the passage of the bill, except continue to deny the Dems political cover.
The only way the Republicans can become anything more than the peanut gallery on this bill, is if the heavy Democratic majority in the House of Representatives choose to empower the Republicans in the Senate by obstructing the explicit legislative wishes of President Obama.
The bill that Obama wants, the bill that he is pushing, is the bill that already passed the Senate. There is no need for that bill to ever return to the Senate. If the Democrats want to put a Health Care Reform bill on the president’s desk, they can do it one day. They just need to take a straight up and down vote in the House of Representatives on the Senate Bill. If Nancy Pelosi can get 218 of the 256 Democrats in the House to vote for it, it is done.
NOW THAT IS GOOD NEWS!!
If I read that correctly, Kirk doesn’t even need to show up on Wednesday, he won’t have a job.
Dividist, you may be correct, but the changes being discussed last week on the Cadillac insurance is to the Senate bill. So if they make that change to get the unions support, it’ll have to voted on in the Senate again.
@Redteam
True. But that is a Dem party decision to screw around with the bill. Obama is happy with the Senate bill as it sits, as all he cares about now is signing a bill that is called “Health Care Reform.” What it actually does or does not do is immaterial to him. They could even keep the original Senate bill as a fallback if they can’t get a modified bill back through the Senate. Just pull out the bill that passed on xmas eve, dust it off, and drop it on the floor of the House for a vote. At this point is completely in their hands.
Dividist:
I can only assume that you must be a rather dedicated Obama supporter, because your analysis reflects the one flaw that Obama, himself, has always demonstrated: an understanding of theory, not reality.
In theory, everything you said above is true. The chronology you laid out is certainly one that I could see happening – if Democrats weren’t facing almost guaranteed upheaval in November. By all accounts, the Dems look very likely to lose their seats in ANY pink, purple or light blue state this Fall, and their majority leader in the Senate is now polling at 40% in Nevada. What you are somehow overlooking is that the groundswell that has begun in MA will almost certainly lead to a takeover in these other states. This is most certainly about more than Brown or Coakley: this is a preview of coming attractions.
With their seats and livelihoods on the lines, it seems naive, at best, and foolhardly, at worst, to assume that the Dems – with blue dogs and centrist Dems facing the battle of their lives in 10 months – will simply be able to “pull out the bill that passed on xmas eve, dust it off, and drop it on the floor of the House for a vote.”
If you believe otherwise, then you are seriously underestimating the significance of what is now happening in MA. Even if by some miracle 60 Democratic minions decide to surrender their political careers and fall on the sword for a doomed president, that will not change the fact that Obama Care will be the last piece of legislation that Obama will ever come even close to passing during the remainder of his first and only term in office.
After November 2010, Obama will be a lame duck of epic and unprecedented proportions.