Last Requests

Kennedy: Replace Me Quickly

Asks Mass. for law change.

Ted Kennedy is coming to grips with his own mortality. The Boston Globe reports that the senator, who is suffering from brain cancer, has written a letter to Mass. Governor Deval Patrick, Senate President Therese Murray, and House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo asking that the law be changed so that Patrick can appoint a temporary senator to serve the state during the 5-month gap between Kennedy's potential death and the ensuing special election. The governor had this authority until 2004, when the legislature changed the law to prevent then-Governor Mitt Romney from filling John Kerry's seat with a Republican, should Kerry win the presidency. Kennedy never liked the new law, but is particularly averse to it now, as Senate Democrats try to rally the troops in advance of a health-care vote. Kennedy and his advisers adamantly denied that the timing of the letter corresponded to any immediate worsening of the senator's condition.