Today I received an email from Nicholas J. Voegeli who is a candidate for Lieutenant Governor in the State of Wisconsin. Honestly I don't know much about about the candidate. This is the first that I have heard of him but the fact that he personally sent me an email talking about my political site and such ... that gives him a few points right there. Check him out online. Below is a piece that he recently wrote and submitted to papers across the state.
The Allegiance of Constitutional Officers
Permit me first to reveal that I am a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin. As I was circulating nomination papers necessary for admission to the September primary ballot, many people were surprised to learn that the Lieutenant Governor’s office is actually an elected position. It appeared to me that a significant portion of the population believes that the occupant of this office is a gubernatorial appointee, selected by the Governor by virtue of their shared political and ideological beliefs. But Wisconsin differs from the Federal model of executive leadership selection in that we vote for both Governor and Lieutenant Governor.
What does the fact that we the citizens of the state actually elect this officer mean? It means that rather than being beholden to the Governor for his rank, the Lieutenant Governor is and ought to be beholden exclusively to the citizens of the State of Wisconsin. Yet have we really seen this in practice?
Our state constitution has been amended many times, one of which instances was in 1967 when the legislature determined that the Governor and Lieutenant Governor ought to be elected as a ticket in November, after having first stood as individuals in the September primary election. Those who do not make a practice of exercising their franchise in September would naturally only see that the two officers are elected on a single vote, and miss out on the opportunity to participate in the actual creation of that ticket.
The legislature having created a tremendous gubernatorial coattail on which the prospective Lieutenant Governor may ride into office, is it not natural that he would feel a sense of indebtedness, not to the people who elected him, but to the Governor in whose wake he himself steamed into office? And is it not also to be expected that believing himself so indebted, he would refrain from biting the hand that he perceives to feed him, neglecting the true source of the legitimacy of his incumbency, we the people?
We are witnesses to this misperception. Rather than reflecting upon the true nature of this constitutional office, past and current incumbents alike have evolved into nothing more than the Governors greatest cheerleader. Instead of representing the interests of the people, when they are in conflict with those of the Governor, our Lieutenant Governors have opted to cast their lots with the Governor on whose re-election depends their own re-election.
For example, Governor Doyle has found himself in the news recently as a result of ethical missteps relating to the acceptance of campaign contributions from individuals who stood to benefit by the awarding of a state travel contract. While the Governor may not himself have been aware of the deliberations surrounding the awarding of this contract, that he accepted these contributions while these deliberations were occurring demonstrates, at best, that his mind was elsewhere and at worst that he is so confident of his re-election that ethical miscues are not even being considered as potentially damning.
What sayeth Barbara Lawton? If she were more concerned with the restoration of the clean government we formerly enjoyed in this state, and if she recognized that her own re-election would be too great a price to pay to permit the perpetuation of the unethical politics now practiced in Madison, should she not have spoken with Governor Doyle, constitutional officer to constitutional officer, about the need to return the contributions and apologize to the state for the perception he had given? And after speaking with him in the legitimate voice of the people, and Governor Doyle refusing to do so, should she not have publicly disavowed her support for his actions in this particular instance?
An understanding of the power of each constitutional office should be required of every incumbent and aspirant, and that the power is derived from one source: the citizens of the state. In that knowledge, constitutional officers must exercise independence - independence of thought, and independence of action. And from their separate and equal pulpits, each constitutional officer has the right, granted by these same citizens, to speak out in his own voice and with his own words.
Why have we as citizens come to expect less of all our constitutional officers than we deserve?
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