Kentucky’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Monday announced the state’s Democratic governor’s role in deciding who would fill the Senate seat should a vacancy arise in 82-year-old Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s home state. passed a resolution to remove the .
The bill calls for a special election to be held to fill the Bluegrass State Senate vacancy. The bill passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives and now moves on to the Senate, where Republicans hold a supermajority.
Republican House Majority Leader Stephen Rudy said his bill has nothing to do with McConnell and reflects McConnell’s longstanding policy stance on how to fill the vacated Senate seat. Ta.
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The House action comes days after McConnell announced he would step down from the longtime leadership position in November. The decision sparked a wave of speculation about the future of his seat in his home state of Kentucky.
In his speech on the Senate floor, McConnell left open the possibility of seeking re-election in 2026, declaring at one point that he was “not going anywhere anytime soon.”
Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who won a landslide re-election victory over McConnell’s successor last November, accused the Senate succession bill of being driven by partisanship.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (left) speaks with Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear during a ceremony at the Kentucky State Capitol on January 2, 2024 in Frankfort, Kentucky. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
The governor said last week, “If we’re just being controlled by trying to create a result of how many letters are at the end of someone’s name when they’re appointed, we’re not doing good government, we’re not doing good government. I cannot say that we are doing so.” “Last November, people said, ‘No more.’ We’re tired of class partisanship and candidates who only see ‘Team R’ or ‘Team D’ or red or blue.” I don’t want a General Assembly.”
Governors can veto bills once they reach the floor, but Republicans have used the political power gained from their supermajority status to easily override governors’ past vetoes on a variety of issues.
Mr. Beshear is already aware that his influence in selecting senators has been significantly diminished by Republicans.
In 2021, the Legislature temporarily stripped the governor of his independent authority to fill the Senate seat. The measure limits the governor from choosing from a list of three names provided by party leaders from the same party as the senator who previously held the seat. Both Kentucky U.S. senators are Republicans. The measure became law after Republican lawmakers overrode Beshear’s veto.
On Monday, Rudy said his bill would treat vacancies in the U.S. Senate similarly to vacancies in the Kentucky House or Congress by holding a special election to fill the seat. Ta. The House added an emergency clause, meaning the bill would go into effect immediately if passed.
Rep. Derrick Graham, the top House Democrat, said he has consistently opposed efforts to weaken or strip governors of their authority to fill vacant U.S. Senate seats.
“We’ve looked at history and it’s always been the governor’s choice,” he said. “And I support the idea that the governor should be responsible for choosing who that senator will be until the election for that particular seat.”
Mr. Rudy last week called Mr. McConnell a “great friend and political mentor,” and credited the state’s senior senator with playing a key role in bringing Republicans to power in the Kentucky General Assembly.
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Mr. Rudy introduced the bill on February 21, and it passed a House committee the day after Mr. McConnell’s announcement in Washington. Rudy said last week that the bill had nothing to do with McConnell and that former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted on charges including trying to sell an appointment to Barack Obama’s old Senate seat. McConnell said it’s something he’s been talking about for more than a decade, ever since he received the letter. .
At the time, Republicans remained in the minority in the Kentucky House of Representatives. Following the Republicans’ landslide victory in the 2016 elections, they gained a majority in the House of Representatives, cementing the party’s complete control of Congress. Mr. Rudy has introduced a bill calling for a special election to fill a Senate vacancy in 2021, but Republicans have instead decided to adopt another bill that would restrict the governor from choosing from a list of three names. Selected.
“I still think I was the better version, so that’s why I applied again this year,” Rudy said last week. “It has nothing to do with Sen. McConnell. It just deals with the vacancy issue.”
