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Nov
18
From The Washington Post’s The Fix:
Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden will not accept an appointment to the Senate to replace his father, according to knowledgeable state sources, a decision that scrambles the race to to replace the vice president-elect in the Senate next year.
Beau Biden, the eldest son of Joe Biden, removed himself from consideration even as he prepares to deploy for a year-long tour of duty in Iraq. (Biden is a member of the Delaware National Guard and is currently training in Texas before being deployed to the Middle East.)
But I don’t understand what Chris Cillizza means when he writes,
Given his military commitment, there seemed to be no way that he could be appointed to the seat in early 2009 anyway, and his decision to pro-actively remove himself from consideration simply affirms that reality.
I don’t understand that, “given his military commitment” piece - does that mean that you have to be physically present to be appointed? Or is Cillizza leaning toward the belief that it would just be unrealistic, in the sense that Biden would be appointed, but not be there? What do others think? I can’t find anything else on the decision yet.
Oh - and make this two for two today: Beau was another one of my most favorite names because I really liked the golfer Ben Crenshaw and thought he looked a lot like Beau Bridges.
Okay - well - back then I thought they looked a lot alike.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:34 pm November 18th, 2008 in Congress, Government, Military, Politics
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3 Responses to “Beau Biden won’t split self between military and political positions”
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Shalom Jill,
Being a state attorney general is an executive position, he has assistants who can deal with the day to day operations while he’s in Iraq.
Senators have no such assistants. If the senator isn’t on the floor, no one else is allowed to cast his vote by proxy.
A senator is one of two representatives for a state. Cut him out of the picture and you reduce the state’s power base by 50 percent. That’s not a good legislative place to be in.
On the other hand, your Ohio state representative is only one of 99. If he’s not in Columbus to vote, his district suffers, but the state as a whole is only slightly inconvenienced.
It’s not a good situation, but not nearly as damaging if Sen. Sherrod Brown were to go away for six months.
B’shalom,
Jeff
That’s sound logical, Jeff, but it also seems as though politicians do self-select out of even trying to do both at the same time once they head to the level of the U.S. Congress. I only spent about 10 mins trying to find info, but apparently there are only two members of Congress still on active duty and both fulfill their duty in the Pentagon, according to what I read here.
The only thing not logical about the U.S. Senator’s position is that the other senator actually also represents all of a state’s population - if anything, it becomes more powerful if the other is away but regardless, all of a state’s population voted for or against that senator too.
With a statehouse rep, senator or a Congressional house of rep, it’s more about direct representation of me by my district’s rep. which will be completely eliminated.
I think a lot of this has to do with the timing. They can appoint a placeholder to hold the seat through 2010 when Beau can run. That would be my bet. I believe they have to do this before the end of the year however.