With the support of Gloucester's state representative, the bill to allow the governor make an interim appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the death of Edward M. Kennedy has cleared the state House, its fate to be decided in the state Senate, possibly by next week.
There, the bill does not have the support of Gloucester's senator.
Republicans in the Senate, including Bruce E. Tarr of Gloucester, oppose the bill which was filed.
There are five Republicans in the 40-member Senate. Tarr describes himself as "leaning against the bill," and yesterday Tarr formally objected to moving the measure forward.
Tarr said he assumes Democratic leaders believe they have the votes to pass the bill, yet he still holds out hope enough Democrats may be swayed to vote against it.
"I think there is some doubt about the ultimate outcome. Clearly the vote in the House was not a completely partisan vote," he said. "I'm not sure that anyone has an accurate count on who is on the yes side and who is on the no side."
"I don't know and I don't think that anyone does," Tarr said. "It's a very fluid situation.
Tarr and his fellow Republicans objected to the bill being taken up without formal notice. Under Senate rules, Tarr's objection means the bill can't be debated until the next formal session.
"It is being rushed through," he said. "The pace needs to be deliberate and cautious because we are making a change that doesn't just affect our current situation, but that of the indefinite future."
The House, with Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante siding with the majority, approved the Interim Senator Bill, 95-58, on Thursday.
Ferrante said yesterday the appointment of an interim senator would keep active Kennedy's longstanding commitment to fishery issues by ensuring that the staff Kennedy had assembled could remain intact.
A Senate rule requires the staff of a former senator and his office to close within 60 days of the vacancy; in this case, that would mean the Kennedy's office would have to shut down Oct. 23.
Kennedy died after an extended both with brain cancer on Aug. 26. He was first elected in 1962, and served longer than all but two other senators in U.S. history.
As the law stands now, the seat would remain vacant until a successor is chosen in a special election scheduled for Jan. 19. The special election campaign is underway, with party primaries scheduled for Dec. 8.
More to the point, according to Ferrante, the crack Senate staff which Kennedy was able to recruit and hold together — reputed to be without peer — would be dispersed without an interim senator to hold the seat pending the election of a successor.
"We, as a district, have so many issues that are uniquely federal," Ferrante said, "chief among them fisheries issues, and our need for water and sewer rate relief.
"It's undisputed that Ted Kennedy and his staff were the champions of so many important fishery issues, most recently the move to mobilize the Inspector General (of the Department of Commerce) to report on unjust law enforcement practices (by fishery regulators), and (the misuse of) science and data to push the transition to a quota system" of catch shares.
Ferrante said, "absent a vote for an interim senator, Sen. Kennedy's work, staff and expertise will have been lost and efforts postponed, leaving the fishing industry lonely and vulnerable."
Tarr said there is a way to preserve that continuity without allowing the Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick to name an interim senator. He and 25 colleagues wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid,D-Nev., asking him to initiate a change in the Senate rule that gives a vacant office and staff 60 days to complete the winding down and disband.
Kennedy triggered the movement to allow Patrick the right to name an interim senator when he sent a letter to the Statehouse in the last weeks of his battle with brain cancer. Kennedy's widow, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, also has asked the Legislature to approve the Interim Senator Bill, and there have been reports that President Obama has made it known that he would like to have the seat filled with a 60th senator of the Democratic Party while major political fights, notably over health care, potentially could come to votes in the Senate before an elected successor senator is sworn in.
Speculation is rife about the choice Patrick, a confidante of Obama's, might make. The names in circulation are former Gov. and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis; Paul Kirk, chairman of the John Kennedy Library Foundation Board of Directors; Harvard Professor Charles Ogletree; Nick Littlefield, a former Kennedy staff chief and an attorney in Boston; former state Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Shannon O'Brien; and former state Sen. President Robert Travaglini.
Republican opposition to the Interim Senator Bill traces to a decision by the Legislature to approve a bill in 2004 that barred then Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, from naming a senator, presumably also a Republican, in the event Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry, then running for president, had won and left a vacant Senate seat.
Tarr said it is fair to say he has deep reservations about passing a law to benefit one party.
"We can't change the law every time a different contingency arrives in political power," Tarr said. "We got the bill at noon, and it was supposed to be filed at 10 p.m. That's not enough time to look at it."
Tarr said that after reading through the Interim Senator Bill's amendments yesterday afternoon, there is nothing he objects to and called the majority of the bill positive.
"I wanted the chance to think about it some more," Tarr said. "Slowing the pace makes sense, and after reading the bill, it is positive."
The body will next meet in a formal session on Monday.
Material from staff writer Katie Curley and the Associated Press was used in this report by Richard Gaines. He can be reached at rgaines@gloucestertimes.com
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