Are Castle and Cohen right about eliminating the separate election for Lt. Governor?
Like the Vice Presidency, the Lt. Governor is usually a superfluous position, whose only official duties are to be the President of the Senate and to succeed the President or Governor, respectively, should the need arise. Indeed, the position is so superfluous on the state level that some states don’t even have Lt. Governors, like Arizona, and, until recently, New Jersey. Among the seven states without a separate, full-time office of lieutenant governor, four states have a post of lieutenant governor that is filled by the highest officer of the state Senate while three give the job to the Secretary of State of the state.
Oh yeah, in Delaware, the Lt. Governor is also the President of the Board of Pardons. Forgot about that. Usually, the Lt. Governor can carve out some advisory role to the big cheese, or champion some policy initiatives of his or her own and do constituent service work, but that usually depends on the good graces of the Governor.
In 25 states, the governor and lieutenant governor are elected on the same ticket, ensuring that they come from the same political party. In the remaining 18 states, like Delaware, they are elected separately and, thus, may come from different parties.
As Celia Cohen points out, this has not been a problem since 1988, when Mike Castle, a Republican, was Governor, and his Lt. Governor was Democrat S.B. Woo.
From the end of World War II until the current streak of same-sidekicks began in 1988, it was half and half. Five elections with governors and lieutenant governors of different parties, five the same.
Celia argues that the separate elections for the Governor and the Lt. Governor is a “political anachronism whose time has gone.” Shockingly, Mike Castle agrees (or rather, Cohen agrees with Castle, but that is the Delaware political equivalent to the Chicken and the Egg conundrum).
“I think the governor, regardless of party, has a right to his or her own lieutenant governor. The state would be better served. Take a look at Joe Biden helping President Obama,” Castle said.
The current occupant of the office prefers to face the voters on his own, even though he is always going to be tied to Governor Markell’s administration, just as Carney was tied to Minner and Minner to Carper.
“Selfishly, it would be nice not to have to run on my own, but I think the governor is actually better served by having someone else in the room answerable to the voters. That assumes you have a governor who lets you play that role,” Denn said.
Politically, it is hard to imagine nowadays having a Lt. Governor get elected from a different party than the Governor, even though Charlie Copeland tried his best to get voters to elect him as a check on the then presumptive Governor-elect Markell. It was a curious strategy for Copeland, as he seemed to be dissing his own party’s gubernatorial nominee, yet for a brief moment in early 2008, I thought it might be a successful one. What are your thoughts on this? Should we eliminate the separate ticket approach we used now? Vote in the poll on the front page and comment below.
Primary reason for Lt. Gov. to run separately is for the candidate to get practice for running for Gov. And, while in office, much more time to meet the public because there’s little important work to do, unless you count being chairman of Board of Pardons.
Look at Carper and Markell — they learned about the inside of state government by serving as treasurer, not lt. gov.
Look at Minner — did serving as lt. gov. make her better prepared to be gov.?
Look at Matt Denn — wouldn’t he be more valuable to the state right now if he were serving as insurance commissioner?
Insurance commissioner, treasurer, auditor — all can have an impact on improving the state if they take their jobs seriously and work hard at it. Lt. gov. — given the makeup of the General Assembly, how many times will we ever need a tiebreaker in the Senate?
My bottom line: doesn’t matter whether Lt. Gov. runs with the Gov. or on his/her own. The office is irrelevant, but it’s nice practice for running a campaign.
This is off topic – a recent rant by Copeland on how the state of Delaware should be giving him more money to run his charter school The Nerve!
http://www.townsquaredelaware.com/the-trials-and-tribulations-of-starting-charter-school/
In Colorado, the Governor and Lt. Governor ran separately until the 1970 election. Both offices had a primary and then were married on the ticket for the General election. Sometimes this created akward pairings since the gubernatorial nominee might have supported someone else for Lt. Governor. In the 1998 election, the person who won the party primary for Governor was allowed to name their own runningmate.
I like the idea of having them run on the same ticket, but having primaries for both offices.
Castle is full of poop as usual. Keep the Lt.Gov. election process as it is.
I like the practice as it is now. I don’t like two for the price of one elections since I may not like the bottom end of the ticket but love the top of the ticket. As a rule, I think citizens deserve more choices not less.
I think they should be on the same ticket. If I vote for a Democrat and he/she becomes Governor I do not like that person’s resignation or death to result in a Republican becoming Governor.