With Sen. Trent Lott (R.-Miss.) set to resign from the Senate in a matter of weeks, the assumption is that Gov. Haley Barbour will appoint a fellow Republican to the vacancy, that the newly-minted GOP senator will hold the seat in the subsequent special election - either in 90 days or in November of ’08, to fill the remaining four years of Lott’s term.
That’s what I assumed when I first heard the news of Lott’s exodus earlier this week.
But not so fast. As I have learned, things in politics are not necessarily what they seem at first glance.
Even the venue of how the succession to Lott is to be handled is in dispute. It has been reported that if the senator quits before the first of the year, the resultant special election to fill the vacancy will be held within 90 days. This is what happened the last time a Mississippi senator did not complete his term: when Democratic Sen. Theodore “The Man” Bilbo died on August 21, 1947, a special election was held within 90 days and won by state Judge and Democrat John C. Stennis, who was promptly sworn into office on November 15th of that year. (The late James P. Coleman, Stennis’ campaign manager in that race, once recalled to me how he came to Washington to see Stennis take the oath of office from Republican Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, president pro tem of the Senate; Coleman, who went on to be governor and a U.S. Court of Appeals judge, added that he also came to Washington forty years later, in January of 1987, to be sworn in as president pro tem himself).
But Mississippi Republicans now maintain that the 90-day rule does not apply, that whomever Barbour appoints - most likely Rep. Roger Wicker - would have to face the voters in November of ’08. Democrats argue that the 90-day rule applies and Wicker or any other appointed GOP senator would have to pass muster with Magnolia State voters in 90 days. Privately, Mississippi political sources tell me, an early-bird election and lower turnout would favor their most likely candidate, former State Attorney General Michael Moore. A November election with a Democratic ticket likely led by Hillary Clinton, they fear, would severely dampen the chances of Moore or any other Democrat.
The outgoing secretary of state (a Democrat) has said the 90-day rule does not apply. Under state law, a three-person panel consisting of the governor, secretary of state (Republican Delbert Hoseman, who won the office in November), and attorney general (Jim Hood, a Democrat) will decide the timing of the special election. That’s two Republicans to one Democrat, almost a cinch to spell the appointed senator running in November. Democrats, in turn, will almost surely file suit in court to demand a “snap” election.
There is another twist herein: if the “snap” election is held, Wicker faces the specter of giving up his House seat, losing a Senate race, and being out of office completely. Under those circumstances, one veteran Jackson Republican told me, “Roger would not accept appointment” and, most likely, a stopgap senator would be appointed - very likely Charles Pickering, retired federal judge and a hero among conservative Mississippians for the way in which his appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals was thwarted. (Pickering, namesake-father of a U.S. House Member from Mississippi, is a former state senator and state party chairman who lost the GOP primary for the Senate to present Sen. Thad Cochran in 1978).
At 70, the elder Pickering is unlikely to run for a full term and this would open up the race to numerous ambitious Republicans and thereby help the chances of a Democratic powerhouse like Moore.
So what happens after Trent Lott exits is, in shorthand, more complicated than it appears at first glance - and, for political reporters, something worth watching.
