What happens if Ted Stevens wins the election in Alaska?

Answer 1

What happens if Ted Stevens wins re-election to the Senate and then resigns? Alaska DISPATCH, Tundra Talk NOVEMBER 05, 2008 There’s lots of speculation on what would happen if Ted Stevens wins and then either resigns or is expelled from the Senate. Would Gov. Sarah Palin try to make an appointment? Would she run in a special election to fill his seat? In 2004, the Alaska Legislature revised the law on how the state fills Senate vacancies. Before then, the governor had the power to fill the seat. This happened twice in previous years: Gov. Wally Hickel appointed Stevens in 1968. Then, in November 2002, when Frank Murkowski was elected governor, he appointed his daughter, Lisa, to fill his Senate vacancy. The Murkowski appointment angered many Alaskans, and thus began a push to change the law. In 2004, the Legislature passed a bill requiring a special election but left open the option for the governor to appoint a temporary replacement until an election could be held. Later in 2004, Alaskans passed a ballot measure that also said there must be a special election but stripped the governor of her authority to appoint a temporary replacement. The two laws could conflict because the 17th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that a state legislature can grant a governor power to make a Senate appointment. But backers of the 2004 citizen initiative claim that when voters passed the ballot measure excluding such appointments, the new law trumped the Legislature’s from earlier that year. “The people in Alaska enjoy the same power as the Legislature,” Jeff Feldman, an Anchorage lawyer who worked on the citizen initiative, said Wednesday The Attorney General has not been asked to review the law this week, said Mike Barnhill, an assistant Alaska Attorney General. “This would only become an issue if the governor made a (temporary) appointment,” he said Wednesday. “Right now it’s all hypothetical.” Sharon Leighow, a Palin spokeswoman, said there “has been no discussion” in the governor’s office about whether Palin would consider running for Stevens’ seat, should he win and then resign or be expelled. Feldman said he doubts Palin would try to make a temporary appointment. “It would be an odd thing for her do, given she has run as reformist,” he said. ............... http://www.alaskadispatch.com/tundra-talk/1-talk-of-the-tundra/286-what-happens-if-ted-stevens-wins-and-then-resigns.html