Democratic Senator has a stroke.

[firecoins]

This can give the Senate back to Republicans potentially.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2006-12-13T211951Z_01_N13236200_RTRUKOC_0_US-USA-CONGRESS-JOHNSON.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

Conspiracy? Does this reengergize the 9/11 truth movement?

[defaultdotxbe]

traditionally wouldnt his seat be offered to his wife?

or was that just something i read in a novel?

[firecoins]

traditionally wouldnt his seat be offered to his wife?

or was that just something i read in a novel?
its up to the governor.

[maccy]

its up to the governor.

In Britain there is a new election if someone dies or stands down due to ill health (or any other reason) so that came as quite a surprise to me.

I know the Governor is Republican but won't he have a hard time justifying appointing a Republican to replace a Democrat? Especially as it would hand control of The Senate back to the Republicans.

[defaultdotxbe]

its up to the governor.
well i know the governor has final say, but what is the precedent for appointing successors?

like the electoral college, they can cast their votes for whomever they want but will traditionally cast for whoever won the popular vote in their state

[firecoins]

well i know the governor has final say, but what is the precedent for appointing successors?

like the electoral college, they can cast their votes for whomever they want but will traditionally cast for whoever won the popular vote in their state
There is no requirement, at least I am not aware of it. Does not mean there isn't. I think it depends on the state.

[defaultdotxbe]

There is no requirement, at least I am not aware of it. Does not mean there isn't. I think it depends on the state.
i don tthink theres a requirement either, but there must be some sort of precedent, i cant seem to find any info on it

whatever the precedent is thats how youll have to judge whether the governors appointment is unusual or not (im not trying to put you on the spot, i just want to get a head start on the CTers, lol)

edit: apparently any successor the governor appoints will only hold the position for a maximum of 90 days until an election is held to select a permanent sucessor

also, a successor will only be needed if johnson dies or resigns

[Architect]

Tell you what....let's solve the problem and have a neutral.

What are the kickbacks like? If they're any good, I'll do it. hell of a commute, mind....

[Foolmewunz]

South Dakota SoS has commented that they don't have a clear rule on what they would do about a Senator who is incapacitated. If a Senator dies, the governor replaces him, but they'd probably have months of internal wrangling in the state to change their own law.

It's not clear that he's actually had a stroke, although it sounds so. He was taken in with "stroke-lke symptoms". Evidently he was on the phone with reporters and started stuttering and got disoriented, but he finished the phone conference, so it may be a "mild" stroke (there's a better term for that, I'm sure, and I don't mean to minimize the topic, either).

My mother suffered a mild stroke in her late 50's, and lived for another twenty years with only minor memory loss.

Have already seen some CTers commenting that it was a Bush/Republinazi play.

One on the comments to this news item:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/13/politics/main2258875.shtml

[Alt+F4]

My mother suffered a mild stroke in her late 50's, and lived for another twenty years with only minor memory loss.

My father had a severe stroke but lived for another seven years. I don't think the Constitution address Congressional incapacatation. Most likely, there will be a special election if he doesn't recover somewhat quickly (six months?).

[Alt+F4]

Have already seen some CTers commenting that it was a Bush/Republinazi play.

Well that didn't take long. As time goes by if someone dies who has even the slightest connection to 9/11 it will be deamed "suspicious" by the conspiracy liars. In their twisted world people don't have strokes, get cancer, die in fires or car crashes. Gosh I think Killtown doesn't even think that airplanes can crash due to pilot error, weather or mechanical problems. Every plane crash is a NWO hit.

[defaultdotxbe]

Well that didn't take long. As time goes by if someone dies who has even the slightest connection to 9/11 it will be deamed "suspicious" by the conspiracy liars. In their twisted world people don't have strokes, get cancer, die in fires or car crashes. Gosh I think Killtown doesn't even think that airplanes can crash due to pilot error, weather or mechanical problems. Every plane crash is a NWO hit.
atually i think killtown is to the point where plane crashes just dont happen

not with planes at least

[nemo]

If he can still breathe he can stay. Look how long Strom Thurmond served.

[steverino]

If he can still breathe he can stay. Look how long Strom Thurmond served.

Another still-breathing nonagenarian. (Exactly...He eats nona's.)

[fishbob]

My father had a severe stroke but lived for another seven years. I don't think the Constitution address Congressional incapacatation. Most likely, there will be a special election if he doesn't recover somewhat quickly (six months?).
Strom Thurmond served for years while completely senile, so Congressional Incapacitation is apparently not considered to be a hindrance to performing the job.

Rats - Nemo beat me to the Strom reference.

[gtc]

Something similar happened twice in Australia in 1975 and precipitated a political crisis which is still the subject of conspiracy theories.

In 1975 a Queensland Labor Senator died and a New South Wales Labor Senator quit to become a judge. While Labor controlled the House of Representatives (and therefore the government), they relied on those two Senators to control the Senate and pass their expenditure bills.

By convention the Labor party would have nominated replacements Senators and these would have been confirmed by the respective State Governments. Instead, the conservative state governments chose new Senators opposed to the Prime Minister.

This led directly to the events known as The Dismissal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_constitutional_crisis_of_1975), with the help of the CIA (if you believe the CTs).

Will this be the start of a new Conspiracy Theory? I hope so!

[firecoins]

I put this thread in the ct section to discuss possible ct theories and it gets moved to politics? :confused:

[Dr Adequate]

well i know the governor has final say, but what is the precedent for appointing successors? The 17th Amendment leaves it up to the Governor of the State.

The precedent is that the Governor appoints the spouse, if there is one.

But even if the Governor breaks precedent, this only last until elections are held, so it can only briefly change the composition of the Senate over the head of the people.

"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: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct."

I am not an American, but I play one on TV. Kind of like Hugh Laurie, only more charismatic and better looking.

[WildCat]

In Illinois the Democrat MO is to make a back-room deal to get the son of the stricken/retired pol to take his place. It is a birthright, after all. Happened here twice in the last few months on the Cook County Board. Nothing says "Democrat comittment to democracy" like passing the office to an heir.

[BPSCG]

There's no real precedent. Senators die all the time and governors appoint their successors. Most recent case being NJ Senator Jon Corzine getting elected governor and appointing his own successor to the Senate. At last report, Corzine and Bob Menendez were not married to each other (Menendez won election outright in November, despite widespread allegations of massive corruption, which NJ voters evidently don't think is as serious as sending suggestive emails to congressional pages).

Big issue here isn't what happens if Johnson dies; that's pretty clear-cut - the governor appoints whomever he wants. But apparently, South Dakota's state constitution doesn't provide for replacing a senator in the event of his disability.

Could raise interesting issues. As long as Johnson remained senator, the Dems would still control the Senate, with the biggest advantage being that they would have majorities on all the committees, and the committee chairmen would all be Dems, so they would control legislation. If it were to drag on for months, with Johnson in a coma, Repubs would then start asking - very delicately - if the Dems were properly the majority party any more, since one of their members had not carried out his duties.

This could be fun, if you can get past the tragedy of a man lying unconscious in a hospital bed for months at a time.

[hgc]

The 17th Amendment leaves it up to the Governor of the State.

The precedent is that the Governor appoints the spouse, if there is one.

But even if the Governor breaks precedent, this only last until elections are held, so it can only briefly change the composition of the Senate over the head of the people.

"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: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct."

I am not an American, but I play one on TV. Kind of like Hugh Laurie, only more charismatic and better looking.
Are you smoking crack? Precedent is for the spouse? It does happen on occassion, but it's a small minority of the cases.

The real precedent is for the governor to appoint someone of his own party, and to do it quickly.

[NoZed Avenger]

Regardless of anyone's political views ot the fallout, I hope that Senator Johnson recovers completely.

[BPSCG]

"I saw him; he looked great," Reid said. "To me, he looked very good."
Link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/14/AR2006121400379.html)

Guy's in a hospital bed with his head swathed in bandages, and probably unable to speak, and Harry Reid says, "he looked great." Man's obviously been to Hugo Chavez school. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-2312550,00.html)

[Hotspur]

I suspect he will continue to look good to Harry Reid as long as he's breathing

[ponderingturtle]

South Dakota SoS has commented that they don't have a clear rule on what they would do about a Senator who is incapacitated. If a Senator dies, the governor replaces him, but they'd probably have months of internal wrangling in the state to change their own law.

It's not clear that he's actually had a stroke, although it sounds so. He was taken in with "stroke-lke symptoms". Evidently he was on the phone with reporters and started stuttering and got disoriented, but he finished the phone conference, so it may be a "mild" stroke (there's a better term for that, I'm sure, and I don't mean to minimize the topic, either).


Sounds more like a TIA. Which can be called a mini stroke, but as the T is for transient it is not necessarily resulting in brain damage

[fishbob]

BPSCJ: Guy's in a hospital bed with his head swathed in bandages, and probably unable to speak, and Harry Reid says, "he looked great." Man's obviously been to Hugo Chavez school.

No, looks much more like a graduate of the Bill Frist School of Remote Political Brain Function Diagnostics.

[Meadmaker]

Couldn't we say that in a sense of fair play we get to incapacitate one Republican senator?

OK. That was tasteless. In all seriousness, I think the saddest part of this, politically, is that in a house of 100 senators + 1 tiebreaker, it is all so incredibly partisan that there is a huge, huge, difference between 51 and 50. Ideally, there ought to be enough people who vote their conscience instead of the party line that one vote couldn't make all that much difference. It just shouldn't be so incredibly important that someone dying or going into a state of ill health could provoke a political crisis in this way.

[gtc]

Couldn't we say that in a sense of fair play we get to incapacitate one Republican senator?

Precedent in Australia is for one member of the other side to abstain to cover the person unable to attend. I think it is called a 'tie'.

[a_unique_person]

South Dakota SoS has commented that they don't have a clear rule on what they would do about a Senator who is incapacitated. If a Senator dies, the governor replaces him, but they'd probably have months of internal wrangling in the state to change their own law.

It's not clear that he's actually had a stroke, although it sounds so. He was taken in with "stroke-lke symptoms". Evidently he was on the phone with reporters and started stuttering and got disoriented, but he finished the phone conference, so it may be a "mild" stroke (there's a better term for that, I'm sure, and I don't mean to minimize the topic, either).

My mother suffered a mild stroke in her late 50's, and lived for another twenty years with only minor memory loss.

Have already seen some CTers commenting that it was a Bush/Republinazi play.

One on the comments to this news item:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/13/politics/main2258875.shtml

According to CNN, it's the result of a congenital condition that was just waiting to happen one day.



According to the senator's spokeswoman, Julianne Fisher, Eisold said the bleeding in the senator's brain was the result of pressure from blood vessels that are too close together, a condition known as congenital arteriovenous malformation.



http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/12/14/johnson.ill/index.html

[gtc]

According to CNN...

It was ASIO, returning the favour.

[Tricky]

If he declines, do you suppose the Republicans will struggle to keep him alive like they did Terri Schiavo?

[CptColumbo]

I hope he survives, because I don't want to hear Pat Robertson claiming he was struck down by God.

[Meadmaker]

Precedent in Australia is for one member of the other side to abstain to cover the person unable to attend. I think it is called a 'tie'.
Well that's mighty darned civilized. I can't see it happening in the US, but one could always hope.

[BPSCG]

If he declines, do you suppose the Republicans will struggle to keep him alive like they did Terri Schiavo?If he declines, do you suppose the Democrats will struggle to have him starved to death like they did Terri Schiavo?

[firecoins]

If he declines, do you suppose the Democrats will struggle to have him starved to death like they did Terri Schiavo?
Of course not, they don't have the votes until he resigns, than they will do it.

[Kiwiwriter]

If I was a conspiracy theorist, the gerbils in my brain would be working overtime to connect this with UFOs and the NIST. :boggled:

[daredelvis]

If he declines, do you suppose the Democrats will struggle to have him starved to death like they did Terri Schiavo?

If they behave anything like they did in the Terri Schiavo circus, they will struggle to have his doctor act according to his wishes or, if he is not able to speak for himself they will struggle to have the person he has chosen to make decisions for him make those decisions. I fail to see how you arrived at your point of view about their behavior in the Schiavo case.

Daredelvis

[fishbob]

If he declines, do you suppose the Democrats will struggle to have him starved to death like they did Terri Schiavo?

That is a dishonest characterization of the Schiavo situation.
And you know it.

[BPSCG]

That is a dishonest characterization of the Schiavo situation.
And you know it.I'm sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say the Dems struggled manfully to keep her from being starved to death.

[fishbob]

Repeat as needed:

You came here for an argument. Abuse is down the hall.

[BPSCG]

Repeat as needed:

You came here for an argument. Abuse is down the hall.All right, all right, you win.

The Dems didn't lift a finger to try to stop Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.

Happy now?

(Jeeze, you can't please some people...)

[hgc]

All right, all right, you win.

The Dems didn't lift a finger to try to stop Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.

Happy now?

(Jeeze, you can't please some people...)
Get on your knees and thank the Dems for that -- and praise Satan while you're at it -- then I'll be happy. ;)

[joobie]

it seems to me that the people who thought terri schiavo should have been allowed to die with dignity in accordance with her wishes thought that it should have been allowed to happen kevorkian style, no matter what political party they happened to be affiliated with.

of course, we know how republicans feel about that.

(can we please stop with obtuse generalizations now?)