By Steve Brawner
Before he was the second U.S. president, John Adams was the nation’s first vice president, a job he called “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” As was discussed in last week’s column, the same could be said about Arkansas’ lieutenant governor.
The office has only two constitutional duties — to preside over the Senate when it is in session and to serve as governor when the elected governor is out of state or temporarily or permanently unable to serve. In practice, however, “presiding” over the Senate means banging a gavel and making parliamentary rulings, and lieutenant governors rarely do anything significant serving as temporary governors when the elected governor travels out of state. That leaves the office as the state’s backup quarterback with little to do besides be prepared to take the top slot if the elected governor gets a better offer or can’t finish his or her term.
In the past couple of weeks, Arkansas’ current lieutenant governor, Bill Halter, has decided to run for the United States Senate, while three others, Republicans Mark Darr, Donnie Copeland and Democrat Shane Broadway, are running to take his place.
What if they had an office worth running for? After serving three years as Lt. Governor Win Rockefeller’s communications director, I saw firsthand the office’s limitations and possibilities. Here are three alternatives that would make it more useful, relevant and cost-effective.
One option is to make it a real job. While the lieutenant governor would remain the state’s CEO in waiting, he or she also could be the elected head of a state agency — probably a sales-oriented job such as the one leading either the Department of Economic Development or the Department of Parks and Tourism. That would make either of those positions more transparent and more accountable to voters statewide.
Another option would be to attach it to the governor’s office. Unlike the president and vice president, the governor and lieutenant governor don’t run for election on the same ticket, so they don’t have to be able to work together and can even be members of different parties. By “yoking” the two offices together, the lieutenant governor would become the governor’s junior partner. The lieutenant governor and his or her staff would be absorbed into the governor’s office and be deployed as needed, including to head an agency. He or she could negotiate with legislators on the governor’s behalf, woo prospective industries, and appear at events around the state that the governor is unable to attend. Who would you rather represent the governor at your Chamber of Commerce banquet: the lieutenant governor or, as is often the case now, some 24-year-old staff member?
A third idea would be to give the office its old job back. The lieutenant governor is constitutionally authorized to preside over the Senate. It wasn’t too long ago that “preside” meant appointing committees and setting the legislative agenda. Now the real leaders are a handful of Senate insiders who were elected first and foremost to represent their districts. Wouldn’t it be more democratic if all Arkansans had a say in determining the Senate’s leadership?
There are cons to each of these ideas, of course, so the path of least resistance would be maintaining the status quo. Granted, there are worse things than a politician having nothing to do, but that means that Arkansas’ taxpayers will continue funding an office that was created in the first part of the 20th century and hasn’t evolved with the times.
Which leads me to a fourth option that has been chosen by five states: having no lieutenant governor at all.
——-
Steve Brawner is a freelance journalist, a former newspaper editor, and a former aide to former Gov. Mike Huckabee and Lt. Gov. Win Rockefeller. His e-mail address is brawnersteve@mac.com
