Commentary: Vacancy Creates Complications

The question now is whether the state should have a replacement lieutenant governor.

Mark Darr’s promised Feb. 1 resignation created a vacancy in the part-time oftce that has few oft cial duties, so long as the state’s governor can do his job.

Darr resigned after admitting violations of state ethics laws involving misuse of campaign funds and public money.

The lieutenant governor presides over the state Senate when it is in session, although any senator may routinely be found in the chair doing that job. It is common practice and doesn’t impede the Senate’s business for the lieutenant governor not to preside.

The lieutenant governor also fills in for the governor when the governor is out of state or unable to serve.

Usually, that happens when a governor travels, as Gov. Mike Beebe recently did when Arkansas State University’s Red Wolves played in a bowl game or when he joined other governors for a Washington meeting.

If there is no lieutenant governor, the next in line of succession in Arkansas is the president pro tempore of the state Senate. Sen.

Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, has that job now.

The Senate leader is perfectly capable of warming the governor’s chair in the next 11 months, shouldBeebe need to be gone for some reason. Lamoureux certainly is no less able to take on the job longer term than the former lieutenant governor would have been.

Eleven months, most of them when the Legislature won’t even be in session, are all that we’re talking about here. A new lieutenant governor will be elected later this year to begin serving in January, when Darr’s term was set to expire.

While there are whispers of a constitutional amendment to do away with the job altogether, the 2014 election will take place and the state will have a new lieutenant governor come January next year. The soonest a constitutional amendment might be considered is the 2016 general election.

In the meantime, there is this vacancy in the oft ce.

Current state law requires the governor to call a special election to fill the post within 150 days of declaring an oft ce vacant.

That could change, if a draft bill being circulated among state lawmakers gets onto the agenda of the Legislature, which willconvene next month for a fi scal session.

Beebe, who has seen the bill to allow him not to call a special election if there’s a vacancy within 11 months of the general election, is all for it.

“If they pass something like that, I can tell you right now I would not call a special election and would save the money,” Beebe said last week.

The money to be saved includes the cost of a special election and the pay and benefits of the lieutenant governor for whatever time one might serve. There is more money to be saved, if the oftce is shuttered for the remainder of the year;

but lawmakers may not be willing to strip Darr’s staff of their jobs.

However the bill is drawn, there is a long distance between circulating a bill and actually passing it.

Fiscal sessions are restricted to budget matters, unless both houses of the Legislature vote to expand the agenda. At least two-thirds of the lawmakers would have to agree to consider any non-budget matter.

That could certainly happen since the folks who showed Democrat Beebe the draft law are the leaders of the House and Senate, both of which are controlled by the leaders’ fellow Republicans.

You had to know there is a political element to this story.

Although there is moneyto be saved by not fi lling the vacancy in the interim, much of the Republican support for letting the governor not call a special election relates to politics.

This oftce was the plum position among three statewide oft ces Republicans won in 2000. They want to reclaim it next year and prefer to avoid the cost and distraction of a special election to concentrate their efforts on the 2014 general election, which will include a strong bid for governor and for other oft ces.

Otherwise, they’re in for a costly special election to fill the lieutenant governor’s seat for a few months.

Whoever might win a special election would presumably have an edge in the November race. Republicans know that all too well.

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who is making noise about running for president again, found his way into public oftce in a special election for lieutenant governor.

Either a Republican or a Democrat could similarly benefit, but why spend that energy and money on the part-time post?

Whatever the motivation, lawmakers should give Beebe this option to save the public’s money until general election voters can fill the seat.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.

Opinion, Pages 10 on 02/02/2014

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