De mortuis nil nisi bonum
“De mortuis nil nisi bonum”
Ditto.
So, I assume that Governor Quinn can name a replacement that will be in office at least until the rest of the term, which I believe ends on January 12, 2015. January 12, 2015 is the beginning of the next term for the State Treasurer, and at that point there will be a vacancy (since Topinka was reelected in November), which would be filled by the governor—presumably incoming Governor Rauner.
Will Quinn try to name someone as State Treasurer through November 2016 by either (i) naming someone this week and claiming that he should stay in office until a special election is held in November 2016 even though it would cover a term that hasn’t even begun yet (and thus technically isn’t vacant yet) or (ii) naming a State Treasurer for a term that expires on January 12, 2015, and then, right before Rauner takes the oath of office on January 12, naming a State Treasurer (either the same one or a different one) to serve until a special election is held (which the Democrat state legislature certainly wouldn’t agree to be held prior to November 2016)?
In 2002, the Alaska legislature approved a law, passed over Democrat Gov. Knowles’s veto, specifying that a vacancy in a U.S. Senate seat couldn’t be filled until something like 5 days had elapsed since the seat became vacant; the law was necessitated because Sen. Frank Murkowski had been elected governor and would have to resign his Senate seat in order to take the oath of office as governor, and Gov. Knowles was poised to appoint a replacement Senator right before Murkowski took the oath as governor. If an Alaska Democrat was willing to conduct such chicanery to appoint an officer that he had no right to appoint, I can only imagine what a Chicago Democrat is willing to do.