by KYW's Tony Romeo

A Pennsylvania lawmaker says he’ll introduce legislation to take the power to fill vacancies in the US Senate away from the governor. 

No, state Representative Eugene DePasquale, a York County Democrat, says it’s not really a response to the scandal in Illinois involving a governor allegedly trying to sell a Senate seat. It has more to do with all the Senate vacancies, and the idea that voters are being bypassed:

“The Obama seat was vacated along with four other Senate seats. And what made me concerned about this was, you basically have five percent of the US Senate that would be appointed. So, the Blagojevich situation just sort of developed in the meantime.”

DePasquale says he’ll introduce a bill that would require Pennsylvania’s US Senate vacancies be filled by a regular or special election. Rendell’s spokesman says the governor is cool to the idea, calling it a solution in search of a problem, but DePasquale says it’s important to have a discussion about it.