Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Jean Carnahan, the wife of Mel Carnahan (the former governor of Missouri), was a member of the United States Senate from 2000 to 2002. She ascended to the Senate under unusual conditions. Jean Carnahan's husband Mel had been running against the then-incumbent Senator from Missouri, John Ashcroft. Several weeks before election day, Mel Carnahan was killed in a plane crash (along with his son Randy Carnahan and Chris Sifford, a campaign advisor), but his name could not be removed from the ballot due to Missouri election law. Jean Carnahan announced that if he won, she would take his seat until a special election could be held in 2002. She was appointed by the new governor of Missouri in 2001. In 2002, a special election for the seat was held, as the law requires. Carnahan tried to win the seat in her own right, but failed to do so; she was defeated by James Talent, a Republican, who currently holds the seat. Except for her stint in the Senate, Carnahan has never held public office. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.