Bill Approved to Expedite a Successor to Kennedy

The measure was pushed through by the Democratic leadership in an effort to deliver what might be a crucial vote when health care overhaul legislation comes before Congress this fall. Mr. Kennedy had made health reform one of his lifetime priorities.

The vote in the State Senate, 24 to 16, means that Gov. Deval Patrick could appoint an interim senator within days.

In Washington, aides said that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, pumped his fist after a note about the Massachusetts vote was passed to him in his conference room.

Mr. Patrick, a Democrat who is close to President Obama, has refused to discuss potential appointees, but senior Democrats in Washington said Tuesday that Paul G. Kirk Jr., a former aide to Mr. Kennedy and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was a likely choice.

The Democrats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed that Michael S. Dukakis, the former governor and 1988 presidential nominee, said to be under consideration, was out of the running and would not be named.

Other possibilities include Evelyn Murphy, a former lieutenant governor; and Charles Ogletree, a professor at Harvard Law School.

A spokesman for Mr. Patrick, Kyle Sullivan, would not discuss a timeframe for an appointment, saying only that the governor was pleased with the vote.

The appointee would take Mr. Kennedy’s place in the Senate only until a special election is held Jan. 19 but could play a critical role in Congressional Democrats’ efforts in the coming months.

“It means that Massachusetts will be represented by two senators in one of the most important debates of our times,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, referring to the health care fight.

Democrats in Washington were not willing to publicly discuss whether they had a preference for the interim appointee. But some party officials said concerns had been raised privately about the prospect of Mr. Dukakis taking the seat, saying he was a reminder of an era of Democratic failure. They also worried that Mr. Dukakis, 75, might exhibit an independent streak when their main goal at the moment is to hold Democrats as a bloc.

But an editorial in The Boston Globe on Tuesday said Mr. Dukakis would be the best choice, saying that he “knows how politics works and can get his phone calls returned.”

Some Democrats said that appointing Mr. Kirk, now the chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation in Boston, would make sense because of his close ties to the Kennedy family.

Even as Democrats moved toward filling the Kennedy vacancy, the health problems of another senator resurfaced, a reminder of the precariousness of the party’s hold on 60 votes. Senator Robert C. Byrd, 91, Democrat of West Virginia, suffered a fall at his Virginia home on Tuesday and was hospitalized. Aides said he was being kept in the hospital as a precautionary measure.

In Massachusetts, where the succession measure won passage in the House of Representatives last week, the floor debate focused on the complaint of Republicans, and even some Democrats, that the bill was overly partisan. Governors here had the power to fill Senate vacancies until 2004, when the Democratic majority in the legislature changed the law to require a special election. Democrats worried then that if Senator John Kerry were elected president, Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, would appoint a Republican.

“Any way you slice it,” Senator Richard Tisei, the Senate minority leader, said of the bill, “it’s bad precedent and bad politics.”

All 5 Republicans and 11 Democrats opposed the measure. Therese Murray, the Senate president, remained publicly noncommittal until just before the vote, despite calls from the Obama administration and from Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Mr. Kennedy’s widow. Ms. Murray ultimately supported the measure.

The bill does not prohibit the temporary appointee from seeking Mr. Kennedy’s seat in the special election — legislators feared that such a condition would not pass constitutional muster — but Mr. Patrick has said he would ask the appointee to promise not to run.

New laws normally cannot take effect in Massachusetts for 90 days, but governors can put them into effect immediately by declaring an emergency. The bill must be put to a final procedural vote in both chambers of the legislature on Wednesday before being sent to Mr. Patrick.

Under current law, Mr. Kennedy’s seat would remain empty until the special election in January. But shortly before he died of brain cancer last month, Mr. Kennedy asked the state legislature to change the law and allow Mr. Patrick to name a temporary successor until the special election could be held.

Senator Robert A. O’Leary, a Democrat who represents Mr. Kennedy’s home town of Hyannis, appealed to his colleagues to approve the measure out of respect for the late senator.

“I for one think that is something we need to honor,” he said.