A Better Way to Pick Hillary Clinton's Replacement

"America" - the concept, as well as the country - is facing a clash of values as it contemplates the best way to fill vacancies created by departing senators and governors in New York, Illinois and elsewhere who are joining the Obama administration. More is at stake than it might at first seem. Particularly as the United States embarks on a journey with a new administration in which so many have pinned so much hope, these early details matter.

The uproar over the ugly specter of a Senate seat being sold to the highest bidder by the governor of Illinois has reaffirmed America's distaste for oligarchy and pay-to-play politics. But other vacancy replacement procedures being contemplated also are unsettling.

The constitutional chain of succession about to be used in Arizona will see a conservative Republican fill the vacancy for governor left by a departing moderate Democrat. And the possibility that a politically untried scion from one of America's leading families might be appointed to a U.S. Senate seat in New York raises important questions that cannot be easily dismissed in a robust democracy.

Once appointed, the perks of incumbency give the appointee a head start when it comes to reelection. And once reelected, incumbents rarely lose. This raises the democratic stakes on the method used to fill vacancies.

America always has been a dynamic though sometimes contradictory mix of "work ethic" values and practices. Part meritocracy, part egalitarian democracy, with a dash of religiosity thrown in, Americans believe that, generally speaking, you should earn what you get and get what you earn. This has led most Americans to reject both welfare and aristocracy.

That's why the specter of some scallywag buying a Senate seat is utterly offensive. Less offensive, but still objectionable, will be Arizona's secretary of state-turned-governor, who not only did not win the governor's seat in a competitive election but whose party actually lost the previous election.

The case of Caroline Kennedy is more ambiguous. There is nothing untoward about her desire for public service. In fact, it's commendable. By most accounts she has been a model citizen and a loving parent. But she shares those qualities with, oh, about a million other New Yorkers. It's clear that what distinguishes her "candidacy" are other qualities related to her lineage and wealth.

In a representative democracy, that's makes her self-nomination troubling. Particularly at this crucial moment when that democracy is fighting to regain some self-respect that has been lost in recent years.

Kennedy is far from the first to seek the insider appointment route to elective office. Yet the appointment of such a package of wealth, privilege and inexperience to be one of the One Hundred smacks of another Senate a long time ago - in a place called Rome.

The problem for Kennedy, who by all reports loves her country and is public-spirited, is that the inside handoff rankles against the public spirit. It ought to rankle. It's a good sign that it does. It should rankle Kennedy too. Otherwise we would have to question her qualifications. Catch 22.

All three of these vacancy episodes raise a rather obvious question for the next time around: Isn't there a better way to fill vacancies than by inside political appointment or mindless succession?

There are a few possibilities. The first would be to leave the office vacant until either a special election can be organized (usually within 60 days of the vacancy), or at the next regularly scheduled election. Considering that voters already are buried under a blizzard of too many elections, and that special elections are expensive affairs that usually attract as many voters as churchgoers to a midweek service, the latter is probably the better choice. Especially for legislative vacancies, where the officeholder is only one of dozens, and sometimes hundreds, what's the rush?

But here's an even better way, and it taps into another great American value - fill vacancies by lottery. Yes, lottery.

Don't laugh. In its own way, gambling is egalitarian and democratic. Anyone can strike gold by buying Lotto tickets or hitting the slots. Under the spell of the one-armed bandit or the roulette wheel, we are all equal.

In that spirit, William F. Buckley once said, to nods of approval in many quarters, that he'd "rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

So why not hold a lottery to fill the New York Senate seat? Just as the Lotto brings new blood into the ranks of the rich, a Senate lottery would bring new blood into a body that has grown stuffy and exclusive. The downsides are obvious, but are they really that much greater than the current method?

On balance, filling a vacancy by lottery reaffirms certain key American values better than filling it by insider appointment. That in itself is revealing.