December 19, 2005
Work for the Unemployed Posted by Frederic D. Schwarz at 01:30 PM EST When my father was a boy, his mother worked in the state capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska. One day he went into the building to look for her, wandered around a bit, and ended up in someone’s office. The man he found there, who did not seem overburdened with work, chatted pleasantly with the preteen visitor for a few minutes and then told him where his mother might be found. My father walked out wondering what state official had so little to do that he could take the time to chat with every stranger who strolled in off the street. The man turned out to be the lieutenant governor. Not long before this scene took place, Nebraska had instituted a unicameral (one-chamber) legislature. This was eminently sensible, something I think every state should do. But why did those practical-minded Nebraskans retain such a useless thing as a lieutenant governor? The office can certainly be dispensed with. Georgia, for example, never had a lieutenant governor until the voters chose one in the 1946 election—just in time, as it turned out, since the elected governor, Eugene Talmadge, died before he could be inaugurated. In most cases, though, a lieutenant governor is picked mainly to balance the ticket, as if anyone cared. A man and a woman is one common formula, or else a candidate from each of a state’s two main regions or ethnic groups (in the Huey Long era, for example, the candidate for lieutenant governor of Louisiana was usually a French speaker). Every now and then some lieutenant governor has a “Rudy” moment and makes a brief appearance in the big job. For example, when Nelson Rockefeller resigned as governor of New York in 1973, ostensibly to head a public-policy group, his longtime Deputy Droopalong, the nondescript Malcolm Wilson, took over for a year or so. But except for a few states like Texas, where the lieutenant governor exercises some statutory power in the legislature, most lieutenant governors are afterthoughts to afterthoughts—like what Vice Presidents used to be, except that in recent times, for better or worse, most VPs have actually had a job to do. It wasn’t always this way. Before the Revolution in many colonies the lieutenant governor was the guy who did the real work, while the governor spent most of his time in London dining with wealthy merchants. As we would say in publishing, the lieutenant governor was like a managing editor. And in 1812 DeWitt Clinton ran a strong though unsuccessful campaign for President against James Madison while serving as lieutenant governor of New York. Today, though, in most states, the lieutenant governor is basically someone the governor sends out for coffee when his secretary is doing something important. That’s why I was surprised recently to see an advertisement in one of our magazines that read, “Lt. Governor Steele says: A well-earned day off deserves a trip to Maryland”—and then, later that same day, to receive a press release that began: “Today Lt. Governor Skillman encouraged Hoosiers to explore the many attractions within Indiana’s borders.” (Another e-mail proclaimed: “Lt. Governor Skillman Announces ‘Free Gallons Getaway’ Tourism Promotion.”) Michael Steele is running for the U.S. Senate, so that may explain why his name was mentioned so prominently. I’m not sure what Becky Skillman’s plans are, but if she does have aspirations of higher office, she’s certainly getting her name out there. And the same thing seems to be happening in Wisconsin. In a recent speech Michael Zimmerman, a dean at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, implored his audience to be more assertive in demanding additional money for education. “Am I being too extreme in asserting that we need to be more aggressive?” he asked. “I don’t think so—and it turns out that Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton agrees with me.” He then went on to describe the active role Ms. Lawton had taken in lobbying for funding reform. If this is a trend, it’s a welcome one. In recent decades, the role of state governments has expanded tremendously, and if the labor of running them can be divided in pre-Revolutionary fashion, with the governor concentrating on politics and the lieutenant governor on administration, everyone will benefit (and some people might say it’s no coincidence that the blowhard role is usually filled by a man and the practical role by a woman). Best of all is the boost it will give to the self-esteem of lieutenant governors, who will spend much less time delivering boilerplate speeches to tepid applause before the local Pulaski Society—knowing in the back of their minds that they were probably the third choice for speaker, after the pitching coach of the local minor-league team and the third runner-up from the second season of Survivor.
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