If Sen. Patty Murray or Sen. Maria Cantwell moved over to the Obama Cabinet or left for greener pastures  (something we’re not expecting, nor do we liken them to cattle!)  how would their successor be picked?

With President Obama already responsible for four U.S. senators moving over to the Executive Branch (can you name them??),  it’s a logical question, since there’s no single preferred method in the USA.  

In the case of a U.S. House vacancy, like the one created when Rahm Emanuel’s became White House chief of staff, the successor must be chosen by special election. But the Senate rules are different in most states — and there’s talk about a constitutional amendment to treat the Senate just like the House when it comes to filling vacancies.

In Washington state, the governor gets to pick the successor. This happened in 1983, when Republican Gov. John Spellman named Republican Dan Evans to the vacancy created by the death of Democratic Sen. Scoop Jackson. (D’s weren’t exactly thrilled.) Then the gov has to call a special election within three months, with the primary held before that. In other states, like New York, the fill-in can serve until the next general election — 2010 in some cases, giving the appointee a big head start as incumbent… 

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wisc., and other sponsors of a constitutional amendment, say the voters, not the governor, should fill Senate vacancies. Secretary of State Sam Reed has written Feingold saying, “Right on, dude.” In fancier language, of course.

Noting a 31-year background in elections, Reed wrote that

 “Permitting a single partisan official to hand-pick a U.S. Senator is unfair to the voters. It creates an incumbency and therefore gives a disproportionate advantage at the next election. Direct participation of our citizens in electing their representatives to the different arms of government is the lifeblood of the American form of democracy. I support and strongly urge the passage of this constitutional amendment.”

We’ll keep ya posted.

Answer to bonus question of which four states currently have appointed senators, all due to the Obama-Biden ticket winning last fall: Illinois, Delaware, New York and Colorado (President Obama, Veep Biden, SecState Clinton and Interior Secretary Salazar.)  None of the four Senate appointments, Roland Burris, Ted Kaufman, Kirsten Gillibrand and Michael Bennet, respectively, came without controversy, we might note.