Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2021 January 29

= January 29 =

Senate
Has anyone ever run for a United States Senate seat while occupying the other U.S. Senate seat in their state? 66.234.210.119 (talk) 04:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Why would they? Clarityfiend (talk) 09:02, 29 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Why? For fun, explaining why this question is posed in the Entertainment section of the Reference desk. Presumably, if this is possible and they win, one natural person will occupy two seats in the Senate. Each US state separately legislates how its senators are elected, and we need to examine the texts to see if they exclude the theoretical possibility. I think no sitting senator has ever announced their candidacy for the other seat, just because I think we'd have heard of it as being an outrageously weird move. --Lambiam 11:33, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * (A) Their party would never countenance it. (B) It would cost a ton of money. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It has never happened. Whether or not it even could is an entirely unanswerable question, as since no one has ever attempted it, the matter has never been put to the test. -- Jayron 32 12:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As Lambiam notes above, the rules for such things are set down by the states. It may well come down to it being legally prohibited, rather than depending on being put to the test in practice. Since WHAAOE, we must have an article on Laws for the election of U.S. state senators, by state, or at least a group of core rules that all states adhere to, with details of differences in other rules. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:45, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I rather suspect that there are no laws covering this possibility because they wouldn't be necessary. The powers that be would never allow one porker to hog the swill of two at the public trough. In times gone by, I would also have expected the voters to become disgusted at this outrage, but then Trump came along, and now all bets are off. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:13, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Run for a seat in another state? No. However, one Senator from one state (kinda) immediately became a Senator from another state, in unusual circumstances. See Waitman T. Willey. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 04:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Right - he didn't go anywhere, they just redrew the state lines around him. One guy that comes to mind, though, is RFK, who ran for senator in New York, and won - which led Tom Lehrer to brag that Massachusetts was the only state with three senators. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:07, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Or Mitt Romney, who was a resident of Massachussets before moving to Utah (where he'd only lived as a student at BYU) to run for Senator. There are probably plenty of other Senators like that, not even counting ones in newly created states. --jpgordon&#x1d122;&#x1d106; &#x1D110;&#x1d107; 17:42, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
 * See List of members of the United States Congress from multiple states for all the details. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:36, 31 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Prior to the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Senators were appointed by a vote of the state legislature. During that period, it would have been trivial for a sitting Senator to request appointment to the other Senate seat from the same state, since all they would have been requesting is a simple vote from his legislature.  I am not aware of anyone making such a request, but if one did, I suppose that would count for the purpose of this trivia question.  --M @ r ē ino 15:33, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, this has happened. Kent Conrad was elected to the Senate from North Dakota in 1986, but chose not to run for re-election in 1992. However, in September 1992, the other senator from North Dakota, Quentin Burdick, died, which required a special election to fill his seat. Conrad ran for the other seat, won the election, and took office in Burdick's old seat before Conrad's original term had expired. He had to resign from his original seat to take office in Burdick's former seat. But he definitely qualifies as having run for a United States Senate seat while occupying the other U.S. Senate seat in his state. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:12, 5 February 2021 (UTC)