The Kirsten Gillibrand appointment is just more evidence that governors shouldn't be making appointment to Senate seats. Gillibrand is, on the merits, a weird choice. First elected to the House amidst 2006's Democratic wave, she's a political neophyte, albeit an apparently talented one. She may be a conservative Democrat, or, given the fact that she ran in a conservative district and appears to have reversed her retrograde stance on GLBT issues sometime between last night and this morning, she may have been a secret liberal skilled at the art of insincerity. Hard to say. She hasn't had to run in an election yet and so hasn't had to explain herself to the voters. The obvious rejoinder is that she will have to run for reelection. The voters will have time to vet her. And, indeed, that's the very meat of why she was chosen: Her upset against the noxious John Sweeney impressed Rahm Emmanuel, and her subsequent fundraising prowess and campaigning ability caught the attention of Chuck Schumer. She's considered someone who can win both in New York City and upstate New York, and as such, she's likely to hold the seat for the Democrats.That may all be true. But the argument is not that if Kirsten Gillibrand had run in a New York Democratic primary, that she would have won the primary, and then the election. Rather, the argument is that having been chosen by the New York Democratic Party, the state Democratic Party's institutional support and fundraising machinery will protect her from primary challenges and she will prove good at running against the Republicans. It's a weird way to pick senators. And it's not the fault of Schumer or Paterson. It's a collective action problem. Democrats can't start calling special elections to fill vacancies if Republicans will keep appointing Republicans when they arise. And vice versa. Neither party wants fewer senators. Rather, we need a norm of special elections, so both parties win some and lose some, and the whole thing, in theory, equals out, but is democratically legitimate rather than the product of gubernatorial whim. Gillibrand is a weird pick, but she's only weird because she was picked by the governor, and thus his accounting of her policy positions and political attributes is relevant. You can check his work. Had she been legitimately elected, there'd be nothing weird about her at all. THE PROBLEM WITH APPOINTMENTS.
The Kirsten Gillibrand appointment is just more evidence that governors shouldn't be making appointment to Senate seats. Gillibrand is, on the merits, a weird choice. First elected to the House amidst 2006's Democratic wave, she's a political neophyte, albeit an apparently talented one. She may be a conservative Democrat, or, given the fact that she ran in a conservative district and appears to have reversed her retrograde stance on GLBT issues sometime between last night and this morning, she may have been a secret liberal skilled at the art of insincerity. Hard to say. She hasn't had to run in an election yet and so hasn't had to explain herself to the voters. The obvious rejoinder is that she will have to run for reelection. The voters will have time to vet her. And, indeed, that's the very meat of why she was chosen: Her upset against the noxious John Sweeney impressed Rahm Emmanuel, and her subsequent fundraising prowess and campaigning ability caught the attention of Chuck Schumer. She's considered someone who can win both in New York City and upstate New York, and as such, she's likely to hold the seat for the Democrats.That may all be true. But the argument is not that if Kirsten Gillibrand had run in a New York Democratic primary, that she would have won the primary, and then the election. Rather, the argument is that having been chosen by the New York Democratic Party, the state Democratic Party's institutional support and fundraising machinery will protect her from primary challenges and she will prove good at running against the Republicans. It's a weird way to pick senators. And it's not the fault of Schumer or Paterson. It's a collective action problem. Democrats can't start calling special elections to fill vacancies if Republicans will keep appointing Republicans when they arise. And vice versa. Neither party wants fewer senators. Rather, we need a norm of special elections, so both parties win some and lose some, and the whole thing, in theory, equals out, but is democratically legitimate rather than the product of gubernatorial whim. Gillibrand is a weird pick, but she's only weird because she was picked by the governor, and thus his accounting of her policy positions and political attributes is relevant. You can check his work. Had she been legitimately elected, there'd be nothing weird about her at all. 
