Alabama State Senator Chris England (D-Tuscaloosa) says that Alabama law requires the Governor to call a special election for U.S. Senate this year, instead of waiting until 2018. See this story. The Governor has already appointed State Attorney General Luther Strange to fill the seat that was left vacant when Jeff Sessions resigned from the Senate to become U.S. Attorney General.
No federal law requires states to hold special elections for U.S. Senate any earlier than the next regularly scheduled-election for congress. The law is very different for U.S. House vacancies than for U.S. Senate vacancies. Each state has its own law on special elections for Senate vacancies.
He seems to just be saying its wrong for someone to serve that long without a vote, but doesn’t reference any specific law concerning the election. It will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.
It is a long time to have an appointee in post before gaining the approval (or not) of the people.
When Tim Kaine became Mrs Clinton’s VP nominee there were articles about what would happen in VA to replace him.
The procedure was that the VA Governor would appoint someone immediately. There would then be a special election in November in 2017 and then that person would face re-election in 2018 on the scheduled date for the seat.
There is no difference in the constitution with regard to holding elections to fill a House or Senate vacancy. The governor just needs to issue writs of election. In days of yore, they didn’t need an elaborate system to hold an election. Voters would simply gather, put their ballot in a hat or some other collection device, and then the ballots would be counted.
Why elections to fill senate elections are delayed is because of the power to appoint a temporary senator. If Alabama were faced with not having a senator for two years, they would be holding a special election this spring (if there was no law providing this, the legislature would pass a law, or the AG would be advising the governor of his constitutional obligation to issue writs of election).
The provision for a temporary appointment was because Senators were elected by the legislatures. If they were not in session, their next election opportunity might be months away (a typical legislative session would be a few weeks, once per year). But the provision was continued under the 17th Amendment
Congress has the authority to set the time of all congressional elections, not just general elections. They should require the election to be conducted with six months of the vacancy.