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The last time a Governor of New Jersey resigned to take another job it was 1935. A. Harry Moore stepped down (or was it up?) to the U.S. Senate seat he'd won. In those days New Jersey's Governor served a 3-year term and couldn't run for re-election. But three years later he could run again, and so part way through his Senate term Moore did so at the behest of Jersey's Democratic leader Frank Hague, relinquishing his Senate seat for his old job in Trenton.
That sort of musical chairs helped make New Jersey politics something of a national joke in those days. And now, sad to say, our state faces a similar situation. With Governor Whitman leaving for Washington, New Jersey activates an antiquated and inadequate rule of succession.
By virtue of his being President of the State Senate, the state constitution makes Donald DiFrancesco the Acting Governor. You might think he would then resign as Senate President, the way the Speaker oaf the House of Representatives would do upon becoming President if the President and Vice President left office. But no, the constitution makes it clear that in order to be Acting Governor you must also be Senate President.
DiFrancesco is better prepared than any of the five previous Senate Presidents who became Acting Governor. In the old days the Senate Presidency was largely honorary and it rotated every two years. But DiFrancesco has been Senate President for a decade and a legislator for a quarter-century. But there are two big problems with this system, even if DiFrancesco's qualifications aren't at issue. One is that New Jersey will become the only state where a single person can head more than one branch of government. So much for checks and balances. The other is that the state will be governed by someone whom the people of the state did not choose. When the Vice President of the United States takes over the Presidency at least he or she is someone the voters elected as the President's running mate with the knowledge that the person was only a heartbeat away.
But New Jersey will be headed by someone who got to Trenton with the votes of one legislative district-roughly a fortieth of the state's population-and who became Senate President by receiving a majority of the votes of the upper house's 40 members. At a time when we worry about every vote counting in a place like Florida, the fact is we have a constitutional "situation" ("crisis" is too strong a word) of our own.
It need not be this way. Changes could be made to make sure each branch of New Jersey state government has its own leader if the Governor departs for greener pastures, or for the Pearly Gates as was the case with the state's very first Governor, William Livingston. A simple answer would be changing the Constitution to say the Senate President becomes Governor and must resign from the Legislature. But if that fixes the checks-and-balances problem it still doesn't give us a Governor chosen by the people.
So maybe it is time for New Jersey to join almost every other state and create the position of Lieutenant Governor. Some say that's an expensive waste. The Lieutenant Governor would sit around and do nothing, just waiting for a Governor to leave and that's happened only about every 35 years since New Jersey's statehood. It's true the job can be less than significant. The story goes that Calvin Coolidge was seated next to a woman at a dinner party who asked him what he did. When he said he was Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts the woman said he simply must tell her all about it. To which Coolidge is said to have replied, "I just did."
But that can be dealt with too. New Jersey ought to consider abolishing the position of Secretary of State as a cabinet post and let the Lieutenant Governor assume those duties. Contrary to what the title applies the job has nothing to do with foreign policy; it usually is given to people in return for political support as opposed to their knack at the archiving and records management which are a prime function of the department.
Colorful constitutional quirks make for interesting historical footnotes. But the 21st century is upon us and New Jersey is a complicated state of 8 million people. The people and the problems deserve a more accountable systems of succession.
Versions of this appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Record, Times of Trenton and other newspapers.
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