THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701180036
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SERIES: A VIRGINIA REFORM AGENDA
One of a series
LENGTH: 92 lines
It may have made sense 100 or 50 or even 25 years ago to limit Virginia governors to serving but one term. A part-time legislature, without professional staff and dominated by rural interests, might legitimately have feared that its power would be usurped by a stay-in-Richmond executive.
That day is over. In an era when legislative committees meet year-round and the staff serving them compares favorably with the governor's entourage, one branch of government has as much to fear in the way of power-grabbing as another.
As the 21st century approaches, Virginia is the only state in the nation that retains a ban on consecutive gubernatorial terms. This is an antiquated and costly conceit. The price Virginia pays in the loss of continuing, long-term planning is too high.
Moreover, the cost is escalating as heated two-party competition penetrates the bureaucracy. It was one thing when successive governors, regardless of party, stuck largely to the same game plan for governing Virginia. It is quite another when the strategy can change every four years.
Agency and department heads and key officials in the Department of Social Services or Education or the environment are beginning to do what only Cabinet secretaries once did: rotate with each administration.
The result of recent partisan shifts is that Virginia is now operating with its least-experienced echelon of top government administrators in modern times. The institutional-memory gap will almost certainly widen after a new governor is elected next year.
The arguments to eliminate the ban on successive terms are plentiful.
First, in an era of global competition and problems so complex that they require decades to resolve, it makes no sense to limit the state to short-timers at the top. Experience is not the only valuable trait in a leader, but it is one.
Second, the current system encourages administrators to focus on short-term goals to the point of grandstanding. Why not promote locking up every lawbreaker in sight if there's no chance that you'll be the one dealing with the fallout of prison overcrowding?
Or why tackle the thorny problems of school finance if the bill for underinvestment will come due on someone else's watch? A lack of long-range commitment and planning at the executive level may be one reason Virginia's public schools and colleges have skated close to the edge of financial crisis.
Third, having one-term governors favors fragmentation over continuity and undermines accountability. The state budget process is a prime example.
Proper stewardship of the state's resources is probably the primary job of a Virginia governor. But he or she cannot propose and implement a single two-year budget within a four-year term.
The budgets in effect during the first 30 months of a governor's term are primarily designed by his predecessor. Only in the last 18 months is the state operating under a budget that the sitting governor shaped.
Fourth, a succession of one-term governors makes the state vulnerable to repeated, rapid shifts in direction. Each new governor is more interested in charting his own course than in carefully following through on the initiatives of a predecessor.
And fifth, a governor is a lame duck almost from the moment elected. Governors who want to effect major change have an 18-month window of opportunity. After that, the whole focus of the state's power structure shifts to electing a successor.
Over time, one primary argument has been advanced for retaining a one-term governorship. The system insulates a governor from narrow partisan pressure, we are told. Governors who do not have to worry about being re-elected will operate from a more lofty plane than those preoccupied with political fallout.
If the ban on successive terms could rid the governor's office of personal political considerations, it might be worth preserving. Of course, it does not. In fact, a single term may actually encourage governors to act for short-term political gain and reduce their accountability insofar as it frees them from being around when the consequences of their programs are felt.
As for banishing politics, in the past two decades Virginia has not had a single governor who did not at least toy with the notion of seeking higher office once his four years as governor ended.
Two of five have acted on the impulse and a third almost certainly will. Charles S. Robb (1982-86) went on to the U.S. Senate. L Douglas Wilder (1990-94) ran for the presidency during his term and for the Senate after it ended. George F. Allen, the sitting governor, is planning a run for the U.S. Senate in 2000.
Trying to rid politicians of future ambition is as hopeless as trying to eliminate salt from the ocean.
No one wants governors to be king. A two-term, eight-year limit is appropriate. Allowing unlimited terms or approving a single, six-year term is not. Voters need a recall mechanism for inept, unpopular or corrupt leaders. In quadrennial elections, they have one.
Government, like workplaces and families, should be designed to offer incentive and reward for good performance. Politicians who know they have a chance to remain in office have more reason to perform well, deal up front with the consequences of their actions and handle today's problems now.
The time is overdue for a constitutional amendment that would allow Virginia government to follow that prudent, common-sense course.