The Near Term Future

For John, BLUF:  IF Our State Rep David Nangle should resign, and I am not saying he should, but if he should, a snap election before November would be the decision of General Court Speaker Robert Alfred DeLeo.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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In preparing my blog post on the accusations against our 17th Middlesex District Representative David Nangle I wondered about the procedure should he resign.♠

There was not much information out there on the issue.  So, I did a general search on the World Wide Web, and found Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 50: GENERAL PROVISIONS RELATIVE TO PRIMARIES, CAUCUSES AND ELECTIONS.  From there I went to Section 6A: Vacancies in elective offices caused by retirement; notice:

Section 6A. If an elected state, city, or town officer is to be retired on or before the next regular election by reason of superannuation before the completion of the term of office to which he was elected, thereby causing a vacancy in said office, such vacancy shall be filled at said regular election as provided by law for such office.

The retiring authority shall notify the county commissioners, mayor and aldermen in cities, or the selectmen in towns, as the case may be, of the impending retirement of such elected officer at least six months preceding the next state, city, or town election, as the case may be.

Not that helpful, so I went to the Secretary of State's website, Elections Division.  Then I found "Publications" and looked for rules.  Nothing popped out at me, so I called the local Elections Office and the Commonwealth Secretary of State Election Office, where a very nice gentleman told me the story.  It depends on what the local authority, in this case the House, wants to do.  IF Representative Nangle were to resign, the House could decide to hold an election to replace him, or it could ignore the whole thing and wait for Tuesday, 3 November 2020, which is the next scheduled general election.

For that election, there is the Primary on Tuesday, 1 September for the regular November General Election. And, for that Primary, 2 June 2020 is the Deadline to file party nomination papers with the Secretary of the Commonwealth.  (5pm last day and hour.)  Yes, there is a State web site with an election calendar, either as a calendar or as a list.

But, that is all in the future and may well never come to pass.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  IMHO he should not resign based on accusations that have not been proven before a jury of his peers. This could turn out to be like the Senator Ted Stevens case, where there were hot accusations, but in the end he was a free man.