With all the discussion on Johnson’s health and its implications for control of the Senate, I haven’t seen this getting a lot of play:
While vacancies aren’t uncommon in the Senate, they can only occur “by death or resignation,” said Richard Baker, the Senate historian.
“There either has to be a death certificate or there has to be a letter of resignation,” he said. “Nobody has the power to determine a vacancy for a person who is still living.”
Some lawmakers in the past have kept their seats in spite of long illnesses.
In 1969, two years into his fourth term, South Dakota Senator Karl Mundt, a Republican, suffered a stroke and was unable to continue voting. He offered to resign on the condition that South Dakota’s governor appoint Mundt’s wife to fill the vacancy.
The governor refused, and Mundt kept the seat for the balance of the term, even while missing three years of votes. He remained on three committees until 1972, when the Senate Republican Conference stripped him of the assignments.
In the 1940s, Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, a Democrat, missed two years of votes due to illness. At age 87 and in failing health, he refused to retire even as newspapers from across his state pressured him to step aside.
In any event, best wishes for Senator Johnson and his family.