Gov. Deval Patrick and Secretary of State William Galvin received a letter Wednesday requesting that Senator-elect Scott Brown be sworn into office immediately.
The letter, written by Brown lawyer Daniel Winslow, asked that the results of the Jan. 19 special election be certified by no later than 11 a.m. Thursday.
“As he is the duly elected United States Senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he is entitled to be seated now,” the letter stated.
Though Brown originally asked to be sworn into office Feb. 11, the letter said he was advised that a number of important votes had been scheduled prior to that date.
These votes could possibly include a major jobs bill and a confirmation vote for President Barack Obama’s nominee to the National Labor Relations Board, Chicago-based union attorney Craig Becker, according to a Feb. 3 Boston Globe article.
In order for Brown to take office the election results must be approved by the Governor’s Council and then signed again by Patrick and Galvin.
As the governor was away from the Statehouse Wednesday afternoon, he was unable to certify the results, but was plans to certify them by 9:30 a.m. Thursday, said his spokesman Kyle Sullivan in a statement.
Once the Governor’s Council, the governor and the secretary of state have all approved the results and handed in original copies to Brown, the originals will be handed to the secretary of the U.S. Senate. Vice President Joe Biden will then administer the oath of the office by this afternoon.
Interim Sen. Paul Kirk, who was appointed by Patrick to temporarily fill the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat on Sep. 24, announced he will give his farewell speech at 3:45 p.m. on Thursday.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
