When a member of the U.S. House of Representatives dies, retires or takes another job, a special election is held in the district. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin plans to introduce a constitutional amendment requiring special elections to fill vacant U.S. Senate seats as well:

“The controversies surrounding some of the recent gubernatorial appointments to vacant Senate seats make it painfully clear that such appointments are an anachronism that must end.  In 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution gave the citizens of this country the power to finally elect their senators.  They should have the same power in the case of unexpected mid term vacancies, so that the Senate is as responsive as possible to the will of the people.  I plan to introduce a constitutional amendment this week to require special elections when a Senate seat is vacant, as the Constitution mandates for the House, and as my own state of Wisconsin already requires by statute.  As the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, I will hold a hearing on this important topic soon.”

Feingold explained the rationale for his “new effort to empower the people” in this Daily Kos diary.

Since the November election, four Democratic governors have appointed new U.S. senators. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is in particular disgrace for allegedly trying to profit personally from the appointment to fill Barack Obama’s seat. After a convoluted chain of events, Blagojevich was eventually able to get his choice, Roland Burris, seated in the U.S. Senate. (Jane Hamsher wrote the best piece I’ve seen on the farce: I want to play poker with Harry Reid.)

New York Governor David Paterson didn’t cover himself with glory either during the past two months. I agree with Chris Cillizza:

Is it possible that this process could have played out any more publicly or messily? It’s hard to imagine how. Paterson’s final pick — [Kirsten] Gillibrand — is entirely defensible but the way he handled everything that happened between when Clinton was nominated and today cloud that picture. Will Paterson ultimately be a winner for picking an Upstate woman to share the ticket with him in 2010? Maybe. But, today it’s hard to see him as anything other than a loser.

The other two Senate vacancies filled by governors stirred up less controversy nationwide, but are also problematic in some respects. Governor Ruth Ann Minner of Delaware replaced Joe Biden with picked a longtime Biden staffer who has no plans to run in 2010. I love competitive primaries, but in this case Minner was mainly trying to clear the path for Biden’s son Beau Biden, the attorney general of Delaware who could not be appointed to the Senate now because of a deployment in Iraq.

Colorado Governor Bill Ritter passed up various elected officials with extensive campaign experience and a clear position on the issues to appoint Michael Bennet, who had very little political experience and virtually no public record on any national issues. (Colorado pols were stunned by the choice.)

Discussing Feingold’s proposed amendment, John Deeth seems concerned mainly with the prospect of a governor appointing someone from the other political party to replace a retiring senator.

For me, the fact that all four Democratic governors appointed Democrats to the vacant U.S. Senate seats is immaterial.

I can’t tell you whether Burris, Gillibrand, Kaufman or Bennet will do a good job in the Senate for the next two years, but I can assure you that none of them would have earned the right to represent their states in a competitive Democratic primary. That alone is reason to support Feingold’s constitutional amendment.

The power of incumbency is immense and will create obstacles for other Democrats who may want to challenge Gillibrand or Bennet in 2010. (Burris may be out sooner than that if Blagojevich is removed from office, but whoever his successor appoints would have the same unjustified advantage in a potential 2010 primary in Illinois.)

Special elections can be held within a few months. Let voters decide who should represent them in the Senate.

Yesterday runoff elections were held in Louisiana’s second and fourth Congressional districts.

In the biggest Congressional upset of the year, Democratic incumbent “Dollar Bill” Jefferson lost to Republican Joseph Cao in LA-02. You may remember Jefferson as the guy who kept $90,000 in cash in his freezer and used the National Guard to visit his home in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I’m normally a yellow-dog Democrat, but Jefferson is one Democrat I’m happy to see go.

No need to worry about winning back this seat in 2010, as David from Swing State Project explains:

So LA-02 is D+28 (old PVI). There is no district that is as red as this one is blue – UT-03 tops out at R+26. This reminds me of IL-05 in 1994 (1990s PVI: D+11) – corrupt Dan Rostenkowski got beaten by the unknown Michael Flanagan, who got soundly thumped by Rod Blagojevich two years later.

Remember, there are only nine other Republicans in Congress representing House districts with any kind of Democratic lean, and the most Democratic of those districts is D+6.5. Assuming Louisiana Democrats come up with a credible candidate in 2010, LA-02 should be an easy pickup.

The result in LA-04 yesterday was more disappointing. Democrat Paul Carmouche appears to be just 350 votes (less than 0.5 percent) behind Republican John Fleming. Carmouche is not conceding yet, but I doubt there are enough outstanding provisional and absentee ballots to put him over the top here. On the other hand, keeping it this close represents a kind of moral victory for Democrats, since John McCain carried LA-04 by 19 points on November 4. A Democrat “should” not even be competitive in a district like this.

Within the past week Democratic candidates conceded in California’s fourth and forty-fourth districts, which were both unexpectedly close despite having strong Republican partisan voting index numbers.

Provisional ballots are still being counted in Ohio’s fifteenth district. It looks like Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy has a decent chance at beating Republican incumbent Steve Stivers, because the 26,000 provisional ballots are in her stronghold (see this post by brownsox for more details). Am I the only one who finds it suspicious that so many voters had to fill out provisional ballots? That’s almost 10 percent of all the voters in the district on November 4.

UPDATE: Kilroy has won OH-15 by about 2,000 votes. Her margin of victory is large enough not to trigger an automatic recount. Assuming the recount in LA-04 does not change last night’s result, the next Congress will have 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans. I’ll take it!

Moving to the Senate races, the Minnesota contest is sure to end up in the courts and perhaps resolved by the U.S. Senate. The state canvassing board has delayed its meeting to review thousands of challenged ballots until December 16, because one precinct that favored Al Franken appears to have lost about 130 ballots that were counted on election night. If the ballots are not found, he could lose several dozen votes, which could make the difference in this ridiculously close race. It’s still unclear whether absentee ballots that were rejected because of clerical errors will be counted in Minnesota.

Click here to find a bunch of recent (and more detailed) accounts of what’s going on in Minnesota. Whoever ends up getting seated in the Senate is going to be viewed as illegitimate by many on the other side. I still can’t believe more than 400,000 Minnesotans voted for independent candidate Dean Barkley.

The presidential election results created a few Senate vacancies. The governor of Delaware appointed Ted Kaufman, a former chief of staff to Joe Biden, to take Biden’s place. The consensus seems to be that Biden set this up to leave the path clear for his son, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, to run in 2010 when there is a special election to determine who will serve out Joe Biden’s term (which ends in 2014). The younger Biden cannot serve in the Senate now because he has been deployed in Iraq.

In New York, Caroline Kennedy (the daughter of President John F. Kennedy) has become the surprise favorite to be appointed to take Hillary Clinton’s place. It strikes me as an odd choice in a state with many capable Democrats in the U.S. House. Nothing against Kennedy, who seems very smart and principled, but I think Governor David Paterson should pick someone with more relevant political experience for this job. More speculation on the New York Senate seat is here. As in Delaware, there will be a special election in 2010 to determine who will serve out Clinton’s term (which ends in 2012).

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich still has not announced his choice to replace Barack Obama in the Senate. Many people still expect Tammy Duckworth to have the inside track, especially since Obama is going with retired General Eric Shinseki for Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs. On the other hand, Fox News says Illinois Senate President Emil Jones will be picked to serve out Obama’s term (which ends in 2010). Jones is considered a “safe” choice because he is both black and an “elder statesman” placeholder. If he is the pick, expect a very competitive Democratic Senate primary in Illinois in 2010.