General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: People scoffed at Trump declaring a national emergency and cancelling the 2020 elections [View all]onenote
(42,699 posts)We start out with the assumption that there are 20 seats currently held by Republicans and 15 seats held by Democrats up for election 2020. If those seats stayed vacant, the Democrats would have a five seat majority and Leahy would be President Pro Tem. But the author gives short shrift to the possibility (actually likelihood) that governors could fill the vacancies. With only a few exceptions, all of the states that would have senate vacancies have governors that aren't up for reelection. Nineteen of the states with Senate vacancies have Republican governors who are authorized by law to file the vacancy and one has a Democratic governor (NC) who is bound by law to appoint someone from the same party that previously held the seat. So that gives the Republicans 50 Senate seats. Only 11 states with seats that would be vacant have Democratic governors who are authorized to fill the vacancy (the other states leave the seat vacant until a special election is held).
So if we're playing out this highly unlikely scenario, chances are that the Republicans control the Senate on January 20 and Grassley becomes president.