Bay State Shuffle

The bill allowing Gov. Deval Patrick to appoint an interim Senator to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy could come up for a state Senate vote as early as tomorrow evening.

“We’ll probably take it up tomorrow,” said Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei, a Wakefield Republican. “I don’t know that there’s a lot to be gained by continuing to delay just to delay it. That’s not what we’re about. We’re trying to give people time to weigh in. We got the weekend out of it.”

“There comes a point when we’ve done whatever we can,” he added. “We’ll see what happens.”

By a 95-58 vote, House members last week approved the bill. Proponents of the bill argue that a second voice is needed to represent the state in Washington and that Kennedy would have wanted an appointee to push for a health care overhaul, while Republicans charge that Democrats are merely playing partisan politics to increase their majority in Washington.

Republicans, who hold only five of the 40 seats in the Senate chamber, had vowed to delay passage of the bill. Patrick has said he would make an appointment within days, sending the new senator to Washington until a Jan. 19 special election.

In other words, if this does go to a vote tomorrow or Wednesday and to Patrick's desk, we could see an appointment to replace Kennedy as early as this weekend.

All of a sudden it's a race to see which happens first, an appointment to replace Kennedy or the Baucus bill coming up for a vote.