Mark Souder Resigning Effective Friday; How the Vacancy is Filled

FoxNews is reporting that US Representative Mark Souder will resign his seat.

More: Stacey Page Connections: Kosciusko County news.

A vacancy in the office of US Representative will be filled by special election.  Indiana law provides that a special election shall be held unless the vacancy occurs less that 30 days before the general election.  The Governor will issue the order for the special election.

The nominations for each party shall occur per IC 3-13-1. The Libertarian Party will nominate a candidate by convention.  Candidates wishing to run under the banner of another third party or as independents may do so under IC 3-8-6.

A resignation of the candidacy would be filled by a caucus of Republican precinct per IC 3-13-1-4.

IC 3-13-1-4
United States Representatives
Sec. 4. A candidate vacancy for United States Representative shall be filled by a caucus comprised by the precinct committeemen of the political party whose precincts are within the congressional district. As added by P.L.5-1986, SEC.9.

It is theoretically possible that a different candidate could be selected to run in the special election as would fill the vacant general election slot for the Republicans.  Likewise, Democrats could select a candidate other than the primary-nominated Tom Hayhurst to run in the special election. These, of course, are unlikely scenarios.

Comments

[tim zank]

Well, I had hoped for a candidate other than Mark this time around in the 3rd, but this wasn't what I had in mind. I'm sorry to see it end this way. This is just sad. Stupid of course on his part, but still sad.

[Kent Howard]

So there will be a special election to fill the spot for the rest of the year, but the people don't get to choose who the candidate will be this fall. Doesn't it seem like it should be the other way around?

Ed. note: In each case, precinct committeepersons choose the nominee of the Republican Party. Democrat precinct committeepersons choose the candidate for the special election.

You make a valid point which I hope to address in a subsequent post.

[Mark Bosworth]

Neil Moore, its time for someone solid.

[Eric Geier]

Love it - he's renewing his faith in God after plowing one of his employees- crazy hypocritical religious people unite!!!!

[Aaron Knight]

Eric, that is how the faith, repentence, renewal process works. Mark is only human.

[Alex Jokay]

Talking Points Memo introduces Souder's mistress, with whom he made a video about sexual abstinence. Real life's so funny I don't know why anybody ever bothers to write fiction.

[Craig Skinner]

Mark Souder constantly lectured Americans about the "sanctity of marriage" and "family values." He and his ilk never hesitated to denigrate gays and lesbians in their campaigns. Perhaps Souder should apologize to members of this community as well as his family.

[Robert Pence]

Even though I disagreed with many of Mark Souder's ideological and politcal positions, I always thought of him as a highly principled individual who lived by his expressed convictions. He's one of the last people I would have expected to see in this sort of situation. I'm disappointed by this.

[Tom Wolf]

I'm not surprised at all. I am stunned by the amount of people that were aware of this and didn't tell all. Now I know why local papers are failing...whatever happened to investigative reporting? Oh yeah, most everyone local has been laid off and the AP feed rules...

[Roger McNeill]

I feel really bad for the Souder family and will keep them in my prayers, but does this situation beg for a renewed discussion about term limits, or at least to kick us voters in the butt about re-electing people forever and ever?

Power corrupts. Period. This corruption rears its head in different ways with different people, but with so much power already concentrated in Washington DC, and with DC seizing for itself more and more power as we sit by and placidly allow it, it is of small surprise to me when this corruption hits the newspapers, whether it be sex, money, influence peddling "special interests" or whatever.

We need to give some serious thought to term limits as a means of limiting the opportunity for corruption, and maybe with some strategic legal action we should re-assert the 10th Amendment and divest power back to the States.

[tim zank]

Roger is correct about "power corrupts" and term limits. Our politicians become "insulated" from constituents and the real world after a couple of terms.

Think about it, Souders "staff" costs 1 million a year. That's just the salaries, then add in the offices here and in Washington and outlying in the region, cars, airfare constantly, it's enormous.

They never pay for anything, their paychecks are direct deposited, they have no real day to day experiences like you and I do. It becomes a world unto itself.

Todays "job" in Congress is nothing like it was intended to be, i.e. average citizens offering a few years of their time to consider the legislative interests of the citizenry.

The only two things they do now is campaign for a year, and lobby to "bring back the state's money" which NEVER should have left in the first place.

Term limits are absolutely necessary.

[John Altevogt]

Mark's pro-family message is only reinforced by his own behavior. He failed to heed it and it cost him his job, his reputation and untold pain for his family.

His behavior also does not make him a hypocrite. He held himself to certain standards and then held himself accountable to those standards by resigning.

Christians are not perfect, but we do have a set of standards that we hold ourselves to and by which others can judge us and hold us accountable.

Mark was an excellent representative for his district and I'm still proud to call him a friend. The work he's done over the years far out weighs his conduct in this instance (although I'm sure that's not an argument he'll be making to his family).

I wish him success in restoring his family. Ours is indeed a religion of grace, forgiveness and reconciliation. I pray that his family can find peace, healing and forgiveness.