A Party Ready for Grim News

Everyone in Washington is wishing Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota the best. He was rushed to the hospital the other day with bleeding in the brain due to a rare congenital vessel malformation. He seems to be doing well, according to sketchy medical reports, though his prognosis remains muddy.

But this wouldn't be Washington if there wasn't something else going on. And you don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure it out. As of now, the Democrats will control the Senate by a razor thin, 51-to-49 majority. Should anything catastrophic happen to Johnson, that could easily become 50-50. That's because the GOP governor of South Dakota would most likely appoint a Republican to replace him. With Vice President Cheney as the tiebreaking vote, Republicans would be in charge.

Keep this in mind, however: Never in the history of this nation has the Senate voted to remove someone from the premises because of health reasons. In fact, one of Johnson's own predecessors from South Dakota–Karl Mundt–suffered a stroke in 1969 and never set foot in the Capitol for the next three years, until his term was up. A more recent example: Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. He had a brain aneurysm in 1988, missed seven months at work, and now he's back. And consider this: The average age of a senator is 60. Johnson will be 60 at the end of the month. If that isn't comity, I don't know what is.

This isn't to say, of course, that no one is making any plans should something catastrophic occur. Watch for the GOP to demand an "out clause" when the Senate comes back and organizes. That would allow them to claim the majority should something happen. Always prepared, those senators.

Always prepared.