Via the AP: No Special Election for N.J. House Seat
Corzine, who named fellow Democrat Menendez to fill the final year of his Senate term after Corzine became governor this month, said a special election would be too costly. He also said voters in Menendez’s district would be asked to go to the polls five different times over just eight weeks.
Ok, elections are expensive, but this really strikes me as unfortunate, as the Governor of New Jersey is denying a substantial number of citizens in his state adequate representation for a whole year because he decided to elevate the individual who held the seat.
Not only is that one less vote for the interests of the state, what about constituent services for that district this year?
If Corzine felt that a special election for the seat was too expensive, he should have picked someone else to fill the Senate vacancy created by his move to the governorship.
And this is rather odd:
The law does not allow the governor to appoint a replacement for a House seat, Assembly Democratic spokesman Joe Donnelly said.Corzine said he would work with state lawmakers “to solve this problem for the future.”
It’s odd, because it isn’t the domain of the state legislatures to “solve” this “problem” as the issue of House vacancies are dealt with in Article I of the Constitution:
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
While it seems that there is some latitude on the calling of special elections, I am unaware of the idea that governors can simply unilaterally decide not to fill a seat–especially when we are talking about roughly half of a term.
January 31st, 2024 at 4:46 pm
[...] sentatives with one less Democrat, and New Jersey with one less representative, for 2024. Dr. Steven Taylor has analysis of this weird decision. My [...]
January 31st, 2024 at 6:30 pm
Absolutely, governors have no authority to make appoinments for vacancies in the House–or even to nominate candiadtes. Presumably they would not be given unilateral appointment powers under any circumstances, which raises the question of who would be empowered to confirm their nominees, if they had even that authority? For senate vacancies, the provision that the governor nominates, state legislature confirms at least involves a representative body that cover the whole territory that the senator would represent. But there is no such body for a House seat (except in states with only one member).
The provision on senate replacement is, of course, a vestige of when Senators were simply elected by the state legislature. Which leads me to a question: Why are governors allowed to initiate a nomination for a vacancy? Why involve the state executive at all?
It seems to me that there should be requirements for special elections for Senate vacancies, too. But, with or without a special election, the seat should be filled in the interim by a candidate chosen by the legislature, without any role for the governor.
What to do when the time is short before the regularly scheduled election is an interesting one. Having a special election the same year as a regular election makes little sense to me. Then you get bizarre scenarios like California’s 50th, where the runoff for the special election will be the same day as the primary for the regular November election (as I have blogged about rather extensively). That troubles me somewhat more than simply leaving the seat vacant until next January.
Of course, if we did not have this archaic electoral system, by-elections (special elections) would not be necessary, but that’s another topic. This comment is long enough already!
February 1st, 2024 at 8:52 am
The Knucklehead of the Day award
Today’s winner is New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine