West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin has asked the special session of the legislature to pass a bill with this suggested wording. The proposed bill would authorize a special U.S. Senate election in November 2010. Unfortunately the draft of the Governor’s bill does not explain what the ballot access rules should be. The draft just says that the Governor is authorized to write ballot access rules and place them into his or her Proclamation that calls the special election. See section 3-10-1a of the proposed bill.
The draft does say that if only one person files for the nomination of any particular qualified party, that person is deemed to be that person’s nominee. But that does not settle the question of how an independent candidate, or the nominee of an unqualified party, may get on the general election ballot.
The special session of the legislature opens on July 15. West Virginia does not have a Lieutenant Governor. Because it is extremely likely that Governor Manchin will be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in this year’s likely special election, and because the Governor’s term does not expire until January 2013, some legislators would also like to address the question of gubernatorial succession. Under the current law, when there is a vacancy in the Governorship, the State Senate President becomes Governor.
Is there a book — Election LAW for party hack MORON DUMMIES in the States ???
NO separation of powers in WV — or is it a dictatorship ???
NONSTOP MORONS in the States regarding BASIC stuff — ballot access and filling vacancies in ALL elective offices — since 1776 ???
First of all, Manchin has absolutely NO BUSINESS proposing legislation as governor. That is the job of the legislature. Manchin is just the chief executive.
Second, the fact that for the entire five plus years that Manchin has been in office, everyone has known that Byrd would probably pass in office and the entire Democrat controlled state government at all branches and levels DID absolutely NOTHING to correct the succession law ahead of time reeks of gross incompetence and irresponsibility. Or else it was planned to happen this way right out of Saul Alinsky’s Rules For Radicals and Machiaveli: Order our of Chaos.
Either way, great that there is movement to correct the ambiguity in our election law, but it will be completely unconstitutional to put this into effect THIS ELECTION YEAR. They pulled the exact same BS a few years ago with legislative pay that affected state senators not up for re-election that year. That was challenged and the corrupt courts here shot it down. I hope there will be legal action on this, even though it will be futile.
EVICT ALL ‘RAT POLITICIANS AND BUREOCRATS!!
In some States the governor has sole authority to dictate what legislation is considered in a special session. In this case, some representative will propose the governor’s bill. If there is no consensus on an alternative, the legislature will pass through the bill – the legislature simply won’t go through a special session refusing to make provisions for a special election.
The bill requires the special election to be held in November (assuming the dates are calculated from when Byrd died) and a primary at least 60 days before. If a Tuesday, this will be on August 31. It is practically mandatory that any legislation come out in a day or two of July 15. Alternatively, the legislature can write a more elaborate scheme that either does away with the primary, or holds the primary in November.