Wicker will take over for departed Lott; State's AG seeks early special election

Republican congressman Roger Wicker is the new senator from Mississippi. He takes over for Trent Lott, who resigned from the Senate in December. Wicker was the choice of Mississippi governor Haley Barbour, who had the power to select a temporary replacement for Lott.

Mississipians are scheduled to vote in a special election Nov. 4 to decide on a more permanent replacement for the seat, the term of which expires in 2012. Wicker is presumed to be the Republican candidate in that special election.

The special election could arrive sooner than Nov. 4 if the state's Democratic attorney general, Jim Hood, has any success with a complaint he has brought in state court urging the court to set an earlier election date. Hood argues for a different interpretation of the state law determining when the state must hold a special election in the wake of a sitting senator's departure.

Hood might have a decent argument. Under Mississippi law, the special election is supposed to be held no later than 100 days after a sitting senator leaves his seat UNLESS the vacancy occurs during a year when "there shall be held a general state or congressional election."

However, Lott resigned in 2007, a year when there is not a general state or congressional election. Recall that Lott emphatically made sure he was resigning before the dawn of 2008, presumably to avoid stricter prohibitions on lobbying his former colleagues (e.g. the new revolving door law would require departing senators to wait two years, not one, before lobbying legislators).

So Hood could be on to something here. If he is successful in court, Mississipians would be voting for a new senator in April.