Five Governors, No Waiting

November 4, 2009 6:00 PM by S.M. Oliva (Archive)

In a footnote to this year's elections, New Jersey voter chose their first-ever lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, who was elected on a ticket with Republican governor-elect Chris Christie. Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2005 creating the lieutenant governor's office; according to the revised constitution, the governor can appoint the lieutenant governor to head a state department in addition to her regular duties - which consist of, well, nothing aside from waiting for the governor to resign or die.

So why does New Jersey now have a lieutenant governor after going a couple centuries without one? Supposedly the necessity of a lieutenant governor became apparent after a comical succession crisis in early 2002. The previous year, Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman resigned to accept a position in George W. Bush's cabinet. Under the existing state constitution, the president of the state Senate, Donald DiFrancesco, assumed the role of acting governor while continuing to hold his legislative positions.

After the 2001 elections, Democrat Jim McGreevey was elected governor while the state Senate was split 20-20 between the parties. Since McGreevey wouldn't take office until January 15, 2002, and DiFrancesco's term as Senate president-acting governor expired on January 8, New Jersey faced an entire week without an all important, absolutely final decision-maker. Somehow it all worked out without inciting civil war:

Senator John O. Bennett (R) shared the acting-governorship with Senator Richard J. Codey (D), co-presidents of the Senate. The two agreed to split the time between Acting Governor DiFrancesco's departure and Governor-Elect McGreevey's inauguration; Senator Bennett thus served as acting governor from 1:30 pm January 8, 2002 until 12:01 am January 12, 2002 and Senator Codey* was acting governor from 12:01am January 12, 2002 until noon January 15, 2002 ...

And if you're not confused enough, state attorney general John Farmer technically served as acting governor from the expiration of DiFrancesco's term at noon on January 8 until Bennett was installed as Senate co-president at 1:30. Hence New Jersey managed to have five governors in a single week.

The lesson here is that for all the statist pretension that we need not only to have "chief executives," but also an ironclad line of succession for said offices, the reality is that such "chaos" has little effect on the daily lives of individuals. New Jersey could rotate its governorship every five days and it really wouldn't matter. Yet we're told it's a big deal when the office manages to change hands once every four years (at best).

Of course, now New Jersey will have a full-time lieutenant governor, collecting a state salary and employing a full staff - and attending meetings of, yes, the National Lieutenant Governors Association - to provide a backup just in case the governor can't complete his term. It's really a perfect symbol of modern government excess. One wonders how the five remaining states without a lieutenant governor will carry on.

*Codey served a second term as acting governor following McGreevey's resignation in 2004 and briefly again in 2006 while Gov. Jon Corzine was recovering from an accident.