If you know what FUBAR means, you get it. If you don't, ask a friend in the military or look it up. In any case, this term perfectly describes the process that will take place between now and 2013 to deal with Senator Byrd's seat being unexpectedly open.
According to West Virginia MetroNews, Governor Manchin can appoint an interim replacement. That interim can hold the seat until November 2012 at which point there will be an election. The same elected seat will have two races. One will be to see who will serve out the last five or six weeks, the other will be to see who takes over afterward.
As far as I can see, this is a combination of the state code and a 1994 State Supreme Court case over the replacement of a judge.
Major media outlets have bombarded the Secretary of State's office to ask clarification of the succession. The Secretary claimed that the office originally wanted to hold off on discussion out of respect for the dead. I see her point, but the plain fact is that this is a question that needed answered this morning in a quiet press release. That is, unless the process is so Byzantine that it actually took them all day to figure it out.
I blame the State Legislature. It's not like no one has asked these questions before. It's also not like this situation was sneaking up on us. We needed the State Legislature to create a rational and simple process and they did not do so. They must address this in the next term, even if it does not apply to the present situation. Fact is that it is not a secret that our other Senator is no spring chicken himself.
Add to this whole mess is the fact that it is probably open to a number of interpretations. We may not have seen the final process mapped out in how we get from today to the final man or woman who will end up in the seat.
Rule of law means that we need a code of law that is easy to understand, efficient, and restrained. In this case, the state law is not any of those desirable characteristics.
Finally, the Governor has not yet indicated who he will appoint, or when that appointment will occur.
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