| Senator Mo Cowan (D-Massachusetts) |
There will be two Black members of the United States Senate.
The confirmation of John Kerry as Secretary of State leaves a U.S. Senate without a member.
Massachusetts governor Deval Partick, names a replacement. The governor picked his chief of staff, William "Mo" Cowan to replace Kerry until a special election is held. The last Black senator who represented Massachusetts was Edward Brooke, a Black Republican.
This will give the U.S. Senate two Black senators. A first in history that there's more than one Black member of the U.S. Senate. He is 43 years old and resides in Stoughton, Massachusetts with his wife and has two sons.
Neither Scott or Cowan were elected to serve. The last Black senator elected to office was Barack Obama who later would become the current President Of The United States. The Illinois governor at the time Rod Blagojevich selected former attorney general Roland Burris as his replacement. Burris retired from the senate and the seat went to Mark Kirk, an Illinois U.S. Representative.
Last year, Jim DeMint resigned two years into his term to be the president of The Heritage Foundation and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley selected Tim Scott, a U.S. Representative to replace him. Scott was sworn in this month. He is the only Black Republican. For at least four weeks, Scott was the only Black senator.
Upon being sworn in, Cowan will become the eighth African-American United States Senator and the second from Massachusetts after Edward Brooke. He will also be one of two African-American Senators in the 113th Congress, along with Republican South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.
Current members of the 113th Congress who were sworn in as replacements included:
Senator Dean Heller (R-Nevada)
Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado)
Senator Kristen Gillibrand (D-New York)
Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii)
Senator Lisa Murkowski (I/R-Alaska)
Senator Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey)
Senator Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi)
Deval Patrick the first Black governor of Massachusetts had picked replacement members of the U.S. Senate. When liberal icon Ted Kennedy passed away, the governor selected Paul Kirk as the replacement.
Republican Scott Brown a state senator from Massachusetts who allied by the Tea Party won the seat and continued the remaining term. He was defeated by consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren.
Brown is signalling that he may run again!
Scott is also signalling he'll run in the U.S. Midterms through a special election in 2014. Scott and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) will be up in a likely hold for Republicans.
The Huffington Post reports that Cowan will continue the legacy of Massachusetts longest serving senator.
He said there would be "no daylight" between him and Kerry on policy. When asked about the looming sequester, he said the "best-case scenario" was a "balanced approach" of spending cuts and tax increases. "I don't think anyone believes it's in the best interest to do straight across-the-board cuts," he said.
Patrick has consistently said that the pick to succeed Kerry should not run in the general election slated for June 25. Cowan embraced the temporary appointment Wednesday, repeating over and over that his stint would be short. Asked about his political future, he said, "I am not running for office; I am not a candidate in the future."
The late Senator Ted Kennedy requested in a letter written before his death that the interim pick to replace him not run in the general election, a principle that Patrick honored after Kennedy died by picking Kennedy's longtime chief of staff, Paul Kirk.
Former Representative Barney Frank was the only person to publicly campaign for the interim appointment, announcing his desire to fill the seat on MSNBC and doing subsequent interviews about it. Frank endorsed Representative Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) as the preferred candidate for the U.S. Midterm elections.
Frank praised Cowan in a brief statement Wednesday. "I know Mr. Cowan is committed to working hard and in a socially fair and economically efficient manner toward solving pending budget issues," he said. “I now look forward to working for the election of Ed Markey to continue this work, and to providing President Obama the support he deserves in carrying out the mandate he received in November." A Frank representative did not respond to interview requests from The Huffington Post.
The only announced candidate for the general election is Markey, who has received a flood of endorsements from Democrats -- including Kerry -- and has a $3.1 million war chest. Representative Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts) is expected to announce his bid Thursday for the seat. Lynch holds more conservative positions than Markey; he opposes abortion rights and voted against President Barack Obama's health care law.
If Cowan changes his mind and decides he'll seek a full term as a senator, he will compete in a three way Democratic race for the primary nomination against both Massachusetts Democratic Representatives Markey and Lynch.
