No one politician is responsible for the confusing and conflicting statutes and case law that address the way we fill important public offices when vacancies occur. For decades, our elected leaders have stepped back from what is an obvious problem. The reason: No one in political life wants to be seen as rigging the system and placing themselves in an unseemly light or making decisions that contemplate the death of another person.

The death June 28 of Sen. Robert C. Byrd has triggered discussions and speculation about what will happen next. Who will represent West Virginia in the U.S. Senate? What implications could this rare shift in congressional leadership have for West Virginia? And, of course, the wandering eyes in Washington are cast this way, knowing that upcoming policy decisions in the U.S. Senate will be too close to call. Even a single vote can have an enormous effect.

Secretary of State Natalie Tennant this week offered her analysis of the state’s succession laws for the U.S. Senate. She said Gov. Joe Manchin would appoint someone to fill Byrd’s seat.

Tennant said state law does not allow her office to host a special election for Byrd’s now-vacant seat until 2012, and that election must be held in conjunction with that year’s general elections. She said the appointee can serve only until the next general election, a provision that makes no sense to me.

According to Tennant, voters in November 2012 will cast ballots for the candidate they want to serve the remaining weeks of Byrd’s current term. They will vote a second time for the candidate they want to serve from January 2013 to January 2019.

That candidate obviously could be the same person and not necessarily the gubernatorial appointee. Tennant called the double election a “unique” situation.

She acknowledged that state law calls for a special election to fill a Senate term in which a vacancy occurs 30 months before that term ends. While Byrd died 30 months and a few days before the end of his term, Tennant said it occurred after the filing period for this year’s elections and that filing period already has passed. Therefore, she said she will not have an election this year.

Not everyone is sure about Tennant’s interpretations. A lawyer friend questioned her “double-election” notion, an oddity that Tennant herself acknowledged.

“A reasoned interpretation of (the law), one taking into account the intent of the Legislature under these specific circumstances, is for there to be a combined announcement of candidacy for both the unexpired term and the six-year term and one space on the 2012 ballots for both,” he said.

At the same time, the offices of governor and U.S. senator are linked. First, of course, the governor must appoint a successor to a Senate seat when a vacancy occurs there. And now we have a governor who is a likely candidate to represent West Virginia in the U.S. Senate, and he obviously must respect the law and the circumstances in which he finds himself.

A host of politicians must wait for the dominoes to fall to plot their own futures. That’s the way it is with politics. They do not stop. They only slow down.

While Tennant’s analysis may make sense to some observers, I hear no one defending laws that generate more questions than answers and more cynicism toward government than respect.

This won’t be easy. Press reports this week said the state Attorney General’s Office wants to review the succession laws and Tennant’s interpretation. Tennant quickly acknowledged she should have contacted the attorney general.

Members of the Legislature are scratching their heads, wondering what comes next. Some want to see the Legislature to jump in now and force a special election in 2012 for the vacant Senate seat. In March, I wrote about West Virginia’s succession laws. They appeared then to be in dire need of reform. Perhaps state officials now have an opportunity to assess our succession laws for public offices and remove the clouds of confusion that hang over them.

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One last item: The state Supreme Court of Appeals is scheduled on Sept. 22 to hear the state’s appeal of a Logan County verdict in the Chief Logan State Park gas case. The case involves the state Department of Environmental Protection trying to prevent the owners of the gas under the state park from recovering their property.

The state lost the case on the circuit court level in Logan County.

Here’s a brief history: The Lawson family granted land in Logan County in 1960 to an entity that ultimately turned the property over to the state, which developed Chief Logan State Park there. As a condition of donating the land, the Lawsons retained ownership of the natural gas under the park. In 1965, the state Legislature passed a law that prohibits mineral recovery in state parks.

With the help of Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., the Lawsons sought a few years ago to recover their gas. The state denied them a permit. Logan County Circuit Judge Roger L. Perry cut to the chase, however, and found for the Lawsons and Cabot.

The state now is appealing to the Supreme Court.

In a state that already has gas wells in public parks and where local government is leasing rights to energy companies on public lands in many locales, the state is trying to deny private citizens the right to claim what is theirs.

The case is worth watching.

Dan Page is editor and publisher of The State Journal. His e-mail address is dpage@statejournal.com.