 Trinsey v. Pennsylvania <unk> <unk> 224 was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that confirmed the validity of special elections held without a primary under the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the United States Constitution . The case came about due to the death of H. John Heinz III , one of the US Senators from Pennsylvania , in a plane crash on April 4 , 1991 . Under the Seventeenth Amendment , state legislatures may give the Governor the power to appoint officials to fill temporarily vacant Senate seats until a special election can be held , and Pennsylvanian law contained a statute executing this and requiring no primaries for the special election . Instead , both the Democrats and Republicans would each internally select their candidates . John S. Trinsey Jr . , a <unk> and potential candidate , asked the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to declare the statute unconstitutional as a violation on the Fourteenth and Seventeenth amendments , because the lack of a primary removed his right to properly vote for candidates and delegated that power to political parties . 
