By Arthur Weinreb
Monday, September 3, 2007
The resignation of Idaho Senator Larry Craig over the weekend points out that there are other ways to replace legislators who quit, die or otherwise leave their offices vacant during their term than to hold byelections. Craig, whose Senate career stalled after his trip to a stall announced on Saturday that he would leave office at the end of September; fifteen months before the expiration of his six year term.
Under American law, the governor of his state of Idaho will get to choose a successor to complete the 27 year legislator's term of office. Were Craig in Canada, his position would remain vacant until the prime minister called an expensive byelection that would draw little in any interest or attention.
Sure there are downsides to the American system. It has been pointed out numerous times by pundits that Craig was treated differently than Senator David Vitter was. The Louisiana Republican was caught and admitted that he had used the services of a now infamous Washington D.C. madam. Unlike the situation that involved Larry Craig, there were a few chuckles over Vitter's "indiscretions" but no calls for ethics investigations or his resignation. Part of the reason for the difference in treatment has to do with the ho-hum nature of what David Vitter admitted to doing contrasted with Craig's attempting to solicit homosexual sex in a public washroom, followed by his plea of guilty and his constant assertions after the story broke that he is "not gay". But there is another reason that justifies the different treatment that Vitter and Craig have received.
Idaho has a Republican governor while Vitter's state of Louisiana is headed by a Democrat. The Republican's are assured that the appointment of a senator to succeed Larry Craig and finish out his term will not change the balance of power in the Senate. The opposite is true if Vitter was forced to resign.
Nonetheless, the citizens of Idaho are not on the hook for the cost of holding another election which in Canada is in excess of half a million dollars. And gone are the days when Parliamentary seats or those in a provincial legislature or assembly are vacated only upon death, serious illness or a major scandal that forces the incumbent to step aside. The most egregious waste of taxpayers' money in Canada took place shortly after the Chrtien Liberals came to power. Sheila Copps had promised to resign because Chrtien had promised to get rid of the hated GST while on the campaign trail and then broke that promise after assuming office. Copps hung on until one evening when she had a mystic revelation at a bank machine and resigned. She ran again for her same seat and won, leaving the status quo in place while depriving her constituents of a sitting MP during the election period. All of this made Sheila feel better and cost the Canadian taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even in the era of big government waste, it's hard to imagine a more wasteful spending of the taxpayers' hard earned money.
Perhaps now is the time to make other arrangements to replace departing MPs rather than holding these special elections that can be timed to suit the prime minister or a provincial premier and leave people without an elected representative for long periods of time. As the baby boom generation is slowly giving way to those who were brought up in the "me generation", more and more elected representatives are choosing to leave their office before their terms expire. And unlike previous generations of legislatures they seem willing to leave for no other reason than their own narrow self interest. Many MPs and MPPs simply pack it in so they can run for office at another level of government because they at least perceive that the grass is greener somewhere else. Or they see big bucks in the private sector and suddenly announce that they have discovered their family and have to leave to spend with them. It's all a crock and a considerable waste of money. And for this, people in their constituency have their neighbourhoods cluttered with lawn signs and the taxpayers have to fork half a million.
Appointing MPs makes more sense when there is a minority government in place. That government can virtually fall at any time and to hold an expensive byelection and elect a new member right before Parliament is dissolved makes little sense.
Sure, appointing a replacement for a departing elected member is less democratic but then we practically live in a dictatorship anyway. There is very little democracy in our political system after people get to go to the polls. The appointment of a member of an opposite party would have ramifications for those members who are leaving to run again somewhere else. It will cease to be an easy matter to leave office just to run for another seat in another level of government.
Perhaps, just perhaps, some of the honourables would think twice before leaving before the end of their elected terms.
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