When Lawmakers Don’t Want Their Replacements Left Up to Chance

American politicians are no longer hand-picked by men in smoke-filled rooms, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t found other ways to more discreetly anoint their successors.

Just before Montana’s filing deadline at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, two-term Sen. Steve Daines (R) pulled a stunner when he withdrew from running for reelection in this year’s midterms. Well, not stunning to everyone: at almost the exact same time, Montana’s US Attorney Kurt Alme filed to run for Daines’ seat. And almost as quickly, President Donald Trump said Daines decided to “pass the torch” and that he would give Alme, “based on Steve’s strongest recommendation, my Complete and Total Endorsement.” Nobody was exactly hiding it.

Such tactics haven’t been exclusive to one party. Democratic Rep. Chuy Garcia (Ill.) announced late last year, just after the filing deadline, that he wouldn’t seek reelection. That left his chief of staff as the only candidate who’d submitted the paperwork. Even some Democrats were appalled: the House voted to reprimand Garcia at the urging of Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.). Perez was quick to do the same for Daines, accusing him of “rigging an election” and calling it “miles beneath the dignity of our democracy.”

With the midterms being so consequential to the remainder of Trump’s term, these sorts of maneuvers entrench a status quo that may no longer represent what voters actually want—because they’re left with no other options.

Good candidates might opt not to run if they think a strong incumbent is running again. Montana may be red, but it’s not so red a Democrat can’t win. Yet the Democrats can’t put up a top-tier candidate that they might have if they knew Daines wasn’t running, since the filing deadline is now past, and Alme now is essentially running against an independent, former University of Montana President Seth Bodnar.

Bodnar said the move allows Daines “to coronate his handpicked successor instead of giving them a voice at the ballot box.” He called it “disgusting arrogance of Washington politicians and their party bosses who trade power back and forth like candy.”

Of course, there have been plenty of lawmakers from both sides who announced retirements for this upcoming election and endorsed a successor. Longtime Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) quickly endorsed Maryland Delegate and former staffer Adrian Boafo to succeed him. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) followed up her surprise retirement announcement with an endorsement of Rep. Harriet Hageman.

That can still give an advantage, but the trickery is something quite different.

Unlike Perez’s rebuke of Garcia, Republicans aren’t criticizing Daines, who is a former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said Daines could “leave however he wants, I think it’s fine.” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he didn’t know much about it, but pointed out how it’s happened before.

Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said it sounds like Daines might not have made a decision until recently, calling it a choice between him and his family that they were probably thinking about for some time.

“Clearly, you’ve got filing deadlines in your states, and you’re going to take into consideration that in terms of your timing,” Thune told a group of reporters asking for his take. “How he handled it is his business, and it will be up to the people of Montana to decide who the next senator is.”

Which is true. Voters in Montana, or Illinois, could help prevent these tactics by not voting for the anointed successor. But that’s expecting an awful lot from an electorate that’s accustomed to voting for party rather than candidate. And both parties know it.