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May 23, 2007
Let's Vote for Attorney General, but Skip the Comptroller
There is sort of big election news in Tennessee this week. Though there are quite a few hurdles yet to leap, a bill that would set things in motion for the popular election of several statewide officials passed in the Tennessee Senate on Monday. (TX: Terry Frank, to name one of many)
Don't look for it any time soon, though, because the House doesn't seem to favor its passage — and because it takes several years to do this sort of thing. So what did the state Senate do, exactly? Well, like the measure to create a state lottery a few years back, this is the first step in an appropriately even-paced process to adjust the state Constitution.
First, a bill passes with a simple majority vote in both houses of the Legislature. The Senate vote we're talking about today is the first part of that. Then, in a later session, both houses must again pass the legislation, but this time with a two-thirds majority each. Success in that round places the question on the ballot in the next statewide election.
This itself is not as easily won as a race for an elected position, where many times a mere plurality (whomever gets the most votes, even if quite a bit less than 50%) gets it. A constitutional referendum in Tennessee requires that, of the number of votes cast in the gubernatorial election, at least 50% approve the amendment. This is why you'll witness political action groups enticing voters to avoid marking a selection for Governor, in order to disproportionately sway the outcome of a ballot initiative. For example, if one million votes were cast among all the gubernatorial candidates, a constitutional amendment would need 500,001 votes to pass. If 200,000 are convinced to sit out the governor race but still vote on the amendment, the amendment only needs 400,001. Follow? (Yes, these numbers are wildly imaginative, but correct in principle.)
Now let's talk about the actual intent of this initiative. I can see both sides. On one hand, I agree with those who say that future officeholders would be selected on popularity more than on ability, or those who maintain that elections are already far too costly. On the other, I only need to point out that the Lieutenant Governor position changed hands this year for the first time in almost four decades. John Wilder might well have remained Speaker of the Senate for that long; I don't know. But the voters had no direct say in who held the second-highest office of the state, due to crafty alliances in a 33-person chamber.
A compromise of sorts is to seriously pursue the direct election of the attorney general, but not of the other proposed offices (comptroller, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and treasurer). I have not arrived at this idea by myself, nor do I afford any certainty to my adoption of it, but it is worth one's consideration. The people need a chief prosecutor who answers directly to them, and doesn't owe big political favors (aherm, except to those big campaign donors; now we're back to the other problem). It's especially troubling that the beholdenness is to the state Supreme Court. The more purely administrative components may be better served by dour number-crunchers who'd be voted off the island if left to us, the fickle public. Lieutenant governor falls somewhere in between, but if we get away with paying one person to play two roles now, why split the gig?
Thankfully, this concept doesn't come loaded with heady moral arguments. It's a welcome change from my first two bouts with amending the Tennessee Constitution. (I have a 1-1 record, for those counting.) This is simply about attempting to find the best method under which to effectively self-govern. Senators Rosalind Kurita and Douglas Henry, among others, are to be commended for reasonable deliberations of both points of view.
Elections | By joe lance | 07:07 PM