Vik Amar has written this provocative Findlaw column. It begins:

This week’s unfortunate death of Republican United States Senator Craig Thomas from Wyoming raises complex, if largely unnoticed, constitutional questions.
The consensus among the pundits is that Thomas’s departure from the closely divided Senate will have no short-term effect on the partisan balance there because although the Wyoming Governor is a Democrat, state law provides that when picking a temporary replacement to serve until an election can be held in 2008, the Governor must choose from among three candidates put up by the leadership of the state GOP – the party represented by the fallen incumbent.
This description of Wyoming law is accurate: The state elections code indeed directs that, in the event of a Senate vacancy among the Wyoming Senate contingent, the central party committee of the party represented by the prior incumbent is to submit three names of qualified persons to the Governor, who “shall” then choose one of the three to serve in the Senate until a popular election is held.
What is dubious, however, is whether this Wyoming statutory scheme is valid under the U.S. Constitution. Perhaps, in the spirit of bipartisanship or out of a desire to respect voter wishes, a Democratic Wyoming Governor should consider, and maybe even tap, a Republican temporary replacement for Thomas. But whether the Governor can legally be forced to pick one of the three persons served up by state GOP leaders is an entirely different matter.

Much of Vik’s analysis is sound. But as a matter of practical politics, I have strong doubts that Wyoming’s Governor, the Supreme Court, or U.S. Senate (even one controlled by Democrats) would meddle with the Wyoming procedure.