The Massachusetts state Senate won't be taking action today on legislation that would let Gov. Deval Patrick name a temporary successor to the late senator Edward Kennedy.

Senate Republicans, the Associated Press reports, "objected to the bill being taken up Friday, without formal notice. Under Senate rules, the objection means the bill can't be debated until the next formal session. The Senate adjourned until Monday."

Yesterday, the Massachusetts House voted 95-58 in favor of giving Patrick the chance to name a successor to Kennedy, a fellow Democrat.

Today, the Boston Globe analyzes that House vote and reports that 58 of the lawmakers "voted the exact opposite way they did on a similar amendment on June 30, 2004." As the Globe adds:

The difference then: Governor Mitt Romney would have been the one doing the appointing, and he is a Republican.

With a governor from their party in corner office, 44 Democrats had a change of heart and switched their nay to a yea. The flip-flopping extended to the other side of the aisle as well — all 13 Republicans that have remained in the House since 2004 changed course and voted against the proposal now that a Democrat is in charge.

In 2004, the issue in Massachusetts was whether Romney would be allowed to name an interim successor in the event that Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, had won the White House.