There's an argument that basically any governor can ignore these kinds of moves since it interferes with the state constitution usually but nobody's tried it for some dumbass decorum reason I assume.
It's a weak argument on the text of the 17th Amendment, which explicitly gives legislatures this power.
The more colorable argument is that laws limiting the choice to somebody of the same party are iffy, arguing that it's a binary either allow appointments or not.
But Kentucky didn't pass that sort of law. They just said no gubernatorial appointments, period, it stays vacant until a special election. That's pretty clearly within their explicit constitutional power.
I think this law replaces a law dictating that the new senator be from the party of the former senator, which was passed in the last couple years and obviously never used.
Right, that's the one Beshear had talked about maybe challenging. In theory there's a not-crazy 17th Amendment argument to make there. But it's very unlikely the courts would agree, those sorts of laws have been around a long time in a good number of states.
And even if that law was struck down, they likelier result is the governor gets to make no appointment, not that he gets to appoint somebody of a different party.
