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A
Bad Idea that Just Won't Die
Once
again we're hearing that Virginia needs two-term
governors to carry out long-term reforms. But sound
ideas don't require a cult of personality to be put
into effect.
Like
a bad penny, the idea of eliminating Virginia’s
constitutional prohibition against consecutive terms
for governors keeps turning up.
It’s December again and time to see that
this ill-considered proposal is taken out of
circulation one more time.
The
principal argument for eliminating the prohibition
is, as before, that Virginia
needs to “get with it.”
After all, proponents say, no other state has
such a prohibition. And
yet no other state enjoys the record of sound
financial management that Virginia
has.
Gov.
Mark R. Warner, the proposal’s most prominent
advocate, argues that four years is not enough time
to complete a program that improves government
performance. This
underscores the fundamental flaw in the
proponents’ thinking about the role of the
governor in particular and about government in
general.
Personality
and celebrity have become far too important in our
politics and governance.
The notion that we are incapable of
responsible self government and that government
can’t operate properly without a particular
individual in power is at odds with republican
values. We
are in very deep trouble if our capacity to make
needed changes in state government depends on having
Warner or any other individual in office for eight
instead of four years.
When
Linwood Holton was elected governor in 1969, he
immediately set out to make the changes in state
government that he promised during his campaign.
But the sweeping recommendations of his
management study were impossible to implement during
a single term.
Reform
wasn’t stymied because Holton was not able to
serve another term. The
power of his proposal had enough force of its own
that the General Assembly followed through and
worked with Holton’s successor to implement the
needed changes. Legislators
came to realize that government reorganization was
good politics.
The
private sector has learned the folly of
personalizing a business enterprise.
This leads to a fragile organization that is
so dependent on the presence of a particular
person—rather than on sound ideas, objectives and
processes—that it can’t function effectively
without that leader.
Decades
ago, management guru Peter Drucker warned against
this focus on personality rather than on the ideas,
the objectives and the management processes that
best serve the enterprise.
Too often, Drucker argued, the cult of
personality prevents the institutionalization of new
approaches so that the enterprise won’t revert to
its former condition when the “great leader”
leaves the scene.
Changes
of significance in state government should never be
left to either the governor or the legislature
alone. It
requires the approval and active participation of
both political branches.
One
has to wonder if Warner is using the idea of
eliminating the prohibition against gubernatorial
succession as an excuse for not trying soon enough
and aggressively enough to implement the changes he
says are needed. Some
of his targets, for example, procurement,
information technology and property management,
require constant attention from both a governor and
the legislature, not a one-time fix.
The
real motivation of the proponents of removing the
175-year-old prohibition is simply to enhance the
political power of the governor so that
ambitious programs favored by certain
interest groups will stand a better chance of being
approved. The
constitutional balance in Virginia
is not perfect, but it has produced the best managed
state in the Union.
Do we really want to change direction and
follow New
York,
California
and other states that have experienced massive
growth during a governor’s second term?
--
December 13,
2004
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