Proposal to abolish state office doesn’t go far enough
By Roy Ockert Jr.
Aug. 19, 2014
Two state senators want to lead an effort to abolish the lieutenant governor’s office, and they make a good point. But they’re not thinking big enough.
Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, and Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, said last week that they will push a bipartisan proposal to get a constitutional amendment on the 2016 ballot that would eliminate what should be the second most important of Arkansas’ seven constitutional offices. It could be one of three amendments proposed next year by the General Assembly.
Before that happens, we the people will elect a new lieutenant governor from among three candidates. That won’t include state Rep. Andy Mayberry, R-East End, who campaigned unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination on a platform that included a pledge to abolish the office he sought. The Libertarian candidate promises the same thing but has little chance of getting elected.
That leaves the question up to the Legislature, and Ingram and Hickey announced what they plan to propose to let everyone, including the candidates, know in advance.
Never fear, though, because their proposal would allow the new office-holder to serve a full-term before the office would disappear on Jan. 1, 2019.
The idea has merit because we haven’t really missed having a lieutenant governor since Mark Darr resigned effective Feb. 1 after various revelations of ethics violations. His staff members stayed on the state payroll, really without anything to do, until late June.
Our 1874 Constitution gives the lieutenant governor only two important duties — to serve as president of the Senate and to succeed to the governorship in case of a vacancy or to fill in when the governor is out of state. A vacancy has occurred twice in recent years — in 1992 when Gov. Bill Clinton, newly elected president, resigned early and again in 1996 when Tucker had to step down because of legal problems and Lt. Gov. Mike Huckabee moved up.
That’s good cause to consider carefully who is next in line to be our governor, and the Ingram-Hickey plan is to designate the attorney general. That’s not necessarily a bad idea except for one possibly fatal flaw, as pointed out by Talk Business & Politics columnist Michael Cook. The attorney general, by definition, almost has to be an attorney so we would be narrowing the qualifications of our next-in-line governor to someone with a law degree.
The people of Arkansas probably wouldn’t agree to that.
Our problem isn’t that having a lieutenant governor is such a bad idea but rather that we don’t give our lieutenant governor enough to do, even considering that it’s a part-time position for which the annual salary is only $41,896. That means the incumbent needs to be wealthy and-or live in the Little Rock area because it’s hardly worthwhile otherwise. The expense of traveling back and forth from his home in Northwest Arkansas is what got Darr in trouble.
Forty-five of the 50 states elect a lieutenant governor.
A second major problem with the office is that we elect the governor and lieutenant governor separately, creating the possibility that they will be from different political parties. In fact, that has been the case twice in recent years, and under such circumstances the governor isn’t going to trust the state’s No. 2 officer enough to delegate any important duties.
At least 21 of those 45 states elect their lieutenant governor on the same ticket, as we do a U.S. president and vice president. A handful have separate elections in the primaries, though.
Ingram and Hickey should think bigger if they truly want to reform the state’s constitutional offices while saving money and increasing efficiency.
Arkansas doesn’t need seven elected constitutional officers. Keep the lieutenant governor as one of three or four full-time elected officials, the others being governor, attorney general and possibly secretary of state. The governor and lieutenant governor should run together as a team.
The duties of the treasurer, auditor and land commissioner could easily be absorbed into administrative departments headed by qualified executives appointed by the governor. Since the advent of term limits, several career politicians have just bounced from one office to another anyway.
Actually we could reconstitute the secretary of state’s office by assigning at least some duties, such as maintaining the state Capitol and its grounds, to the lieutenant governor. A department, functioning mostly as keeper of state records, could be headed by an appointed official, rather than a partisan politician. The latter has become more of an issue with the emergence of a true 2-party system.
Our present Constitution creates seven little “kingdoms,” each with an administrator responsible to no one between elections. We’ve seen what happens when we elect incompetent people to fill these positions — ousted Treasurer Martha Shoffner being exhibit A. Even the governor and the Legislature can do little about abuses of these offices. We don’t have that problem with the directors of critical state agencies like the State Police or the Department of Finance and Administration.
But the Legislature can do something to reform the system: Propose a meaningful constitutional amendment, and we’ll pass it.
Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.