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Can you provide a link to that? I haven’t seen anything like that reported. I have only seen it reported that the KY Constitution constrains the timing of special elections such that the GOP needs to hide McConnell’s condition for three more weeks so that it will be for a special election to be scheduled.
Some crypto guy on X did a deep dive into the minutiae:
X link
Xcancel link
Apparently the law itself is so poorly written as to give anyone grounds to sue, which knowing McConnell might have been the point: in election law, timing is EVERYTHING.
It was something I read in a Reddit discussion. Rather than rely on that, I figured I’d go to the horse’s mouth and read the Kentucky constitution directly. Section 152 covers how to handle vacancies. Unfortunately it’s in old-timey legalese and is rather lengthy and complicated. So I had ChatGPT break it down for me.
Turns out there’s an interesting wrinkle.
The Kentucky constitution is quite explicit; “Vacancies in all offices for the State at large, or for districts larger than a county, shall be filled by appointment of the Governor”. A Senate seat counts as an “office for the State at large” because they represent the entire state.
The argument that the statute is unconstitutional is fairly straightforward:
The problem is the 17th amendment of the United States constitution, which was ratified years after this section of the Kentucky constitution went into effect. The American constitution supersedes state constitutions. The 17th amendment was about how state legislatures choose senators, and it says the state legislature may empower the governor to do so. Which apparently gives final say as to how senators are appointed to the state legislature. So maybe the legislature can make that decision now, even though the state constitution says otherwise.
Nothing’s ever simple. :(
I dunno, I’d recommend the governor at least try appointing someone. Stuff like this never gets sorted out until it actually goes to court.