If the Assembly is giving/taking away power from the Governor’s office based solely upon who is occupying that office, then it does not represent good governance.
I have no problem with re-evaluating the balance of power between the legislature and the executive periodically, and making changes if that’s what the legislature deems appropriate. I think, however, that there are at least two conditions that should be met first:
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[li]Legislators make their intentions known to voters before elections, and,[/li][li]The re-evaluation and conclusions drawn therefrom are not dependent upon the occupant of the executive office.[/li][/ol]
Now, I understand that the second condition asks that the Assembly be non-partisan in its approach, which is apparently a bridge too far for the current batch of legislators in Wisconsin, Michigan, and elsewhere, but it’s the only honest way to deal with matters like this. If you believe that the balance of power between the legislature and the executive is out of whack, then you should believe that it is out of whack regardless of each branch’s party affiliation.
I am well aware that a particular Executive can cause one to re-examine the powers that the office enjoys when that Executive is wielding those powers maliciously or incompetently (coughTrump), and this is a good and necessary thing. I see no harm in thinking, “Wow, we might need to make some changes to keep this from happening again.” But that means re-balancing the powers of the Executive office, not re-balancing the powers for that particular office-holder only.
This is what has me so enraged. It is so clearly a naked and cowardly power-grab. And, to head off the inevitable counter-argument, yes, I absolutely would be just as angry were the party affiliations reversed. Perhaps I’m a bit of an idealist when it comes to governing, but I firmly believe that in order to have a stable democratic republic, party affiliations cannot be allowed to determine the structures of our governments or the powers they enjoy.
No, the Democrats did not get ‘the rules bent’ in the 2002 New Jersey Senate race. The state Supreme Court ruled in their favor. Underhanded, to be sure, but still legal, just as this stunt is by the Wisconsin Republicans.
Trotting out weak examples of Democratic whataboutisms does not justify these actions in Wisconsin. At least you’ve finally acknowledged that this might have political ramifications for these clowns.
And gerrymandering is a ‘reasonable correction of districts’? As has been pointed out numerous times in this thread, there’s nothing reasonable about the current makeup of the Wisconsin House districts.
Also, it’s no different from that time Stalin had his political enemies murdered. It was just politicking then, and if Trump were to do the same that would be fine. Anything that helps you get ahead in politics is just politicking. We don’t need standards or norms.
“When the governor’s mansion changed hands in 1972, 1984, and 1988, legislative Democrats were behind the effort to rein in the new Republican governor’s appointment power. “This history does not excuse what North Carolina Republicans have done,” Adler correctly noted. But they failed to recognize that the precedents that Tarheel State Republicans were building upon led to an appalling lack of perspective among garment-rending political commentators.”
“On the eve of decennial reapportionment and with New Jersey set to lose a congressional seat, that would have left Republicans in control of the consequential federal redistricting process. That simply would not do, and so legislative Democrats spent the lame-duck session ceding legislative redistricting authority to an independent commission.”
“When Republican Bruce Rauner won an upset victory over Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, legislative Democrats moved in the lame-duck session to truncate the length of the term to which the governor could appoint a comptroller from four years to two. Democrats, Quinn included, claimed that this actually made the system more democratic, since it put the vacancy to a vote of the public sooner. “I think democracy is always better when the people call the shots, when the people are in charge,” Quinn said. “Not only is the action planned for tomorrow unconstitutional,” House Republican leader Jim Durkin countered, “it’s nothing short of a power grab by the Democratic majority in a lame-duck session.””
“Had former Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry been elected to the presidency in 2004, then-Gov. Mitt Romney would have been legally obliged to appoint his replacement to the U.S. Senate, and that replacement would presumably have been a Republican. The Democrats in the state legislature couldn’t have that, so they overrode Romney’s veto to strip his office of senatorial appointment power. But following the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy in 2009, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick was hamstrung by that very same law. So, Massachusetts Democrats simply repealed it.”
Interesting article. Why don’t you start a thread about it? We are discussing certain Republicans’ lack of standards in this one. And notice how I use the term “certain”, rather than pretending that a whole swath of people behave in one way, based upon examples of just a few of them.
Let’s just say that this is accurate, but not the whole story.
As the above suggests, Comptroller is a statewide office in Illinois, is a four-year term, and is an elected office.
In November, 2014, Republican Bruce Rauner defeated Democrat incumbent Pat Quinn in the governor’s race. In that same election, the incumbent Comptroller, Judy Baar Topinka (also a Republican), won re-election for her second term in the office. A month after the election (during the lame-duck session), Topinka died suddenly, from a stroke.
Quinn appointed a Democrat (Jerry Stermer) to serve in the office for the remaining few weeks of Topinka’s term, and then Rauner’s appointee (Leslie Munger) became comptroller in January of 2015, and (due to the rule change noted above) served the first two years of Topinka’s second term, before having to run for election for the office in November of 2016 (where she lost to Democrat Susana Mendoza).
I absolutely can see the concern about changing the rules during the lame-duck session. But, had the rule not been changed, Munger would have been able to serve an entire four-year term in an elected office, without having ever stood for election for that office. Had the Democrats really wanted to throw their weight around in a lame-duck session, they could have undoubtedly made the new rule even more disadvantageous to Rauner, or shortened the length of an emergency appointee’s term even further. And, it was only Topinka’s sudden passing, immediately before embarking on a four-year elected term, which led to the rule change, at all.
(Disclosure: though I don’t agree with her politically, Leslie Munger and I have been friends for decades.)
If the Illinois example was really a similar precedent to what was just done in Wisconsin, then the change in law which the Democrats made during the lame-duck session would have meant that Rauner wouldn’t have been allowed to designate an appointee at all (i.e., forcing the office to remain unfilled until a special election could quickly be called and administered in early 2015), or Quinn would have been allowed to designate his own appointee for the entirety of Topinka’s four-year term.
Yeah, you’re equating this to committing murder and genocide. Hyperbole much?
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander is a standard lost on the left when they are not in power. Let’s see how they feel when they have a majority back. Even with so called gerrymandering nothing ever stays the same. And as I said before, paybacks are a bitch. Whether it’s 2 years, 4, or more, it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
First off, both sides do it. Therefore, it follows that the Dems would/will behave in the same fashion when circumstances permit. In that perspective, the Republicans are giving valuable moral guidance by restricting the Dem’s access to such temptations!
By limiting the power of Dems and their voters, they protect them from the moral depravity that would surely follow. Of course, they take on themselves the rigor and discipline required to overcome such dark urges, and can be forgiven…nay, must be forgiven!..if they have occasional failures. Republicans are human, just a lot better at it.
Concerned voices are fraught with worry, and urge Dems to be accepting and generous. After all, if both parties submit to Republican standards and goals, bi-partisan accord can easily be reached!
