Hell just froze over. Massachusetts just elected a Republican senator, Scott Brown, to the seat that was held for 47 years by Ted Kennedy.
As long as I can remember, Massachusetts has had only Democratic representatives in Congress. No general election has been anything more than a formality. It has been considered a fact of life that a Republican running in Massachusetts cannot win and is just running to get his/her message out, like a third-party candidate would in a normal state. Putting (D-MA) after a Senator’s or Congressman’s name is considered redundant.
This is how African-Americans and Democrats felt when Obama got elected.
A caveat: I do not think that Brown is a great candidate, in terms of his views on the issues. He supported the Massachusetts law requiring everyone to have health insurance and opposed Question 1, the 2008 ballot initiative to repeal the state income tax.
But for a Republican to take Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat and vow to defeat the health bill that Kennedy championed? That’s just awesome.
Some blogs and websites with interesting opinions, both pro and con:
On the front page of today’s Boston Globe, next to the story on the Senate passing the health “reform” bill, there was a line that read ”Kirk’s crowning event. B1.” I turned to page B1 to find this story about how great it was that “Senator” Paul Kirk got to help pass the bill that fulfills Ted Kennedy’s dream of expanding health insurance coverage.
So let me get this straight: Kirk’s crowning event was being illegitimately appointed to the Senate by a corrupt governor, with the consent of a corrupt legislature and a corrupt judiciary, so that once Senator Nelson’s and Senator Landrieu’s votes were bought with millions of dollars, there would be enough votes to prevent debate on, and therefore pass, a bill that takes away everyone’s freedom to make their own decisions about health insurance.
Kirk should be so proud! NOT.
There is good news and bad news out of the State Senate. Unfortunately but predictably, they passed the hypocritical bill which would give Governor Patrick the power to appoint a senator to replace Ted Kennedy, a power that they took away from Mitt Romney in 2004 because he is a Republican. Because Patrick has said he will sign the bill, it is set to become law.
However, the power-hungry Democrats did not get a two-thirds majority, which means that the bill has to wait 90 days before going into effect. That is, unless Patrick petitions Secretary of State William Galvin saying that it is an emergency, and Galvin grants the petition. I really hope he doesn’t do that.
A salute goes out to the 5 Republican state senators, as well as the 11 Democrats who were brave enough and had enough integrity to vote against this bill:
- Stephen Brewer
- Jennifer Flanagan
- John Hart
- Brian Joyce
- Michael Moore
- Richard Moore
- Michael Morrissey
- Steven Panagiotakos
- James Timilty
- Susan Tucker
- Stephen Baddour
Source: Boston Herald
The “hypocrisy bill” – which would allow Governor Deval Patrick to appoint an interim replacement for the deceased Senator Ted Kennedy – just passed the Mass. House of Representatives. I honestly cannot believe that so many people support this.
In case you’ve been living under a rock (or aren’t from Massachusetts), governors in this state used to have the power to appoint interim senators when an empty Senate seat arose. Five years ago, however, when Massachusetts had a Republican governor, the Democrat-dominated state legislature passed a bill taking this power away. Now, because we have a Democratic governor, the Democrats want the governor to be able to appoint an interim senator again. In other words, they want the bill that they changed, changed back.
Do I even need to tell you how hypocritical this is?
There have actually been rallies in favor of changing the law back, and the main argument of its supporters is that Massachusetts needs two voices in the Senate. I don’t know about you, but as a supporter of liberty, I don’t feel that either of Massachusetts’s two senators has really represented me.
Obviously, the sole purpose of changing the law back is to allow our Democratic governor to appoint a Democratic senator so that there are as many Democrats in the Senate as possible. This is especially important to the Democrats because they are currently trying to pass their ”health care reform” bill (which I put in quotes because it really doesn’t go far enough to reform much of anything). Contrary to what the pro-hypocrisy people argue, this is precisely the time we don’t need another Democratic Senator from Massachusetts. The health bill – which I will write more about later – threatens to take away our liberty, and we need to do whatever we can to take away votes from it.
Even though I don’t like his politics at all, he is an important historical figure and I think it’s fitting to make a little post in his honor. The Kennedy brothers are together now. I always liked this picture of them.
