Representation at stake

Monday, Aug. 31, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.

The death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy last week has exposed a flaw in a five-year old Massachusetts law that changed how the state’s seats in the U.S. Senate are filled in the event of vacancies.

Bay State Democrats, who controlled the Legislature in 2004, did not want then-Gov. Mitt Romney, a conservative Republican, to appoint a temporary successor to Sen. John Kerry if Kerry’s campaign against President George W. Bush had been successful.

So they replaced the long-standing law requiring a gubernatorial appointment with one that required a special election. As it turned out, Kerry lost and the law was not used.

The flaw — that a special election would take at least five months, a period when Massachusetts would be underrepresented in the Senate — was not corrected back then.

A week before he died, however, Kennedy sent a letter to Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick and the state’s legislative leaders, affirming his support for the special-election law but also pointing out its flaw and asking that it be corrected.

“I believe it is vital for this Commonwealth to have two voices speaking for the needs of its citizens and two votes in the Senate during the approximately five months between a vacancy and an election,” he wrote.

Amending the law to allow the governor to appoint a senator, one who would agree to serve only temporarily until the winner of the special election is declared, makes sense.

It especially makes sense now, as this is an extraordinary time that calls for the views of Massachusetts voters to be fully represented. A historic vote on health care reform, a vote that could affect generations of Americans to come, is only one of the many important bills on the Senate’s post-recess agenda.

The Massachusetts Legislature should pass an amendment making this change as soon as possible.