Legal fight eyed over Senate seat

The state of Arizona will have to fill the Senate seat the late John McCain occupied for 31 years — and his successor could be decided in a courtroom.

Arizona law requires the governor to appoint an interim successor when a Senate seat is left vacant. McCain, who would have turned 82 next week, succumbed to brain cancer on Saturday.

Unless the governor calls for a special election, voters would decide on who fills the seat during the next general election in November.

The governor’s appointee has to come from the same political party as the person who left the seat. McCain was a Republican.

However, Arizona law requires that challengers for that Senate seat in the general election would have to file a petition 90 days prior to the state primary, which is Tuesday.

That means whomever Arizona’s Republican Gov. Doug Ducey picks to fill McCain’s seat would not only hold the position through the end of the current term, but would be in office until the next general election in 2020.

Democrats could challenge that 90-day rule in court and force a special election for McCain’s seat. Arizona’s other Senate seat is also up for grabs in November. Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican who was elected in 2013, announced in October 2017 that he would retire at the end of his term.

The outcome of the Senate situation in Arizona could have a national impact, considering the midterm elections are being viewed as a referendum on President Trump’s agenda.

The Senate is also being asked to confirm the President’s nomination of judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.