Succession to Senate seat is no guarantee of success in next year's election
By JOHN E. MULLIGAN
Journal Washingtion Bureau
PROVIDENCE -- With the echoes fading from the last salutes to Sen. John H. Chafee, the political community here and in Washington will swiftly turn its attention to the choice of his successor.
By law, Governor Almond will select the new senator to serve out Chafee's term. By tradition, he will select a fellow Republican, possibly as early as this week.
Speculation about Almond's choice has centered on Warwick Mayor Lincoln D. Chafee, 46. He declared his candidacy for his father's seat immediately after Senator Chafee announced, last March, that he would not seek a fifth term.
But there is some precedent, in Rhode Island and elsewhere, for the appointment of a caretaker -- someone who is understood to have no long-term designs on the Senate seat.
Almond and the younger Chafee have both declined to talk about the Senate appointment during the week of mourning since the senator's death, last Sunday. Almond has indicated, however, that he may announce his decision this week.
The appointment of Mayor Chafee would confer significant advantages on candidate Chafee: a year in the arena as an incumbent in the U.S. Senate, with a full staff, official mailing privileges, and great power to stake out policy positions, win publicity, and raise campaign funds.
But there could be liabilities, as well. A senator compiles an extensive record of votes, some of which are bound to anger certain constituencies or otherwise raise controversy. Any pratfalls, moreover, take place on a big public stage. In addition, the job takes time away from the campaign trail.
Rhode Island Democrats have already begun to make a political case against appointment of Lincoln Chafee. The state Democratic Party chairman, William J. Lynch, says it would give the Republican candidate an ``unfair advantage'' over the Democrats who are running for the Senate seat, Rep. Robert A. Weygand and former Lt. Gov. Richard Licht.
THE LAST appointed U.S. senator had mixed fortunes. In May 1991, after Pennsylvania Sen. John Heinz, a Republican, died in an air crash, Democrat Harris Wofford was appointed, by his Democratic governor, to replace Heinz. That November, Wofford won the election for the seat, but in 1994 he lost to Republican Rick Santorum.
In the 1960s, Pierre Salinger, who had been President Kennedy's press secretary, was appointed to the seat of the late California Sen. Claire Engel, but he lost the next election, in 1964.
Appointees who fill Senate vacancies do reasonably well when they later run for election to the Senate seat; about half of them succeed. This does not apply, however, to governors who have appointed themselves to fill a Senate vacancy -- they usually lose when they later run for election to the seat.
The last Rhode Island governor to be presented with this choice was Democrat John O. Pastore, in 1949. He prudently appointed a caretaker, Edward L. Leahy, to fill the vacancy left when Sen. J. Howard McGrath resigned to become President Truman's attorney general. Then, when Pastore ran for the Senate seat, in the 1950 election, he won. He served through 1976 -- the year that John Chafee was first elected senator.
The last U.S. senator from Rhode Island to die in office was Republican LeBaron B. Colt, in 1924. Jesse H. Metcalf succeeded him.
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