The overwhelming Democratic majority in the Massachusetts House voted yesterday to change state law and allow Gov. Deval Patrick (D) to name an interim successor to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.
The vote in the similarly Democratic state Senate has been postponed until next week. The rules say that a single senator can postpone debate until the next session, and that's what state Sen. Bruce Tarr (R) accomplished today. The Senate meets again on Monday; Republicans command just five of the 40 Senate seats.
Yesterday's House vote was 95-58. The Senate vote is expected to be closer, as some Democrats have expressed unease in changing the law — a law they changed once before, in 2004, when Sen. John Kerry (D) was running for president, and Democratic lawmakers didn't want to give the then-Republican governor, Mitt Romney, the power to name a successor.
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