May 16, 2005
Is North Carolina Ready for a Shorter Ballot?
By J. Barlow Herget
RALEIGH - Sen. Charles Albertson, D-Duplin, is a patient man. It took him three tries to persuade his fellow legislators to adopt a constitutional amendment last time, and he’s realistic about his latest amendment proposal.
“I know how hard it is to do and it should be hard to change the constitution,” he admits.
Still, he believes that last year’s election debacles for Agriculture Commissioner and Superintendent of Public Instruction make his Senate Bill 56 timely.
The legislation is short and simple, not even a page long. It asks legislators to give voters a chance to eliminate five constitutional offices from the ballot. They are:
* Agriculture Commissioner
* Insurance Commissioner
* Labor Commissioner
* Secretary of State
* State School Superintendent
The bill leaves in place the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer and state auditor.
A companion bill, SB34, outlines how the responsibilities of the eliminated offices will become part of the governor’s cabinet departments.
North Carolinians are not averse to amending the state constitution, but they are wary of gubernatorial power.
Ferrel Guillory, director of the University of North Carolina’s Program on Southern Politics, Media, and Public Life, says that the state “remains spooked by George III.” That would be King George III. Guillory refers to the state’s legendary suspicion of monarchial or executive power.
Until recent times, for example, the North Carolina governor was the only one in the nation who had no veto authority. The governor also was limited to one, four-year term. (He wasn’t even elected by the people until 1836 -- before then he was elected by the General Assembly.)
John Sanders, the former director of the Institute of Government at Chapel Hill, explains that the post-Civil War 1868 Constitution established elections for most of the current Council of State offices. It was considered part of a “democratization” movement.
Gov. Jim Hunt challenged the “weak governor” legend in his first and third terms. He persuaded legislators to put an amendment on the ballot allowing the governor to serve two terms. Voters approved. Next, he won approval of the veto.
Guillory suggests that Albertson and supporters of his legislation -- which, by the way, is bipartisan but small in number in the Senate -- can learn from Hunt’s example.
Hunt had the amendments written so that he had a personal stake in their success. The succession change affected him, and its approval allowed him to run again. It was the same for the veto, although Hunt himself never vetoed a bill.
Hunt also brought his famed campaign network to the referendums. It raised money, bought advertising, and campaigned hard for each amendment’s passage.
Albertson’s arguments for removing the five Council of State offices from the ballot are twofold.
“It will bring about efficiencies in state government,” he says. “It will reduce the amount of money involved in these [Council of State] campaigns.”
He could name a third, unspoken reason: Many voters haven’t a clue about the candidates.
Judicial candidates tend to attract the least interest, but Council of State offices almost never draw as many voters as do top-of-the-ticket candidates such as those for president and governor.
Of the total votes cast in 2004, for example, 99.6 percent voted in the governor’s race; 95.2 for Secretary of State, and 72.6 percent for an Appeals Court seat, according to the April issue of Guillory’s publication NC Datanet.
John Dornan, executive director of The Public School Forum, dryly observes that the still unsettled School Superintendent’s race hasn’t affected school policy “one bit.” The State Board of Education in the mid-1990s was given authority for policy. As for the superintendent’s job, he says, “It’s a nice office, two or three staff people and a bully pulpit.”
Eddie Davis, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, disagrees. He sees an elected superintendent as a “check and balance” on gubernatorial power. “We [NCAE] have traditionally been opposed to taking away that constitutional office,” he says.
There is some history that suggests if Albertson’s bill is approved in the legislature, it has a chance. That was the case with the referendum on modernization of state government in 1970.
Albertson’s bill must receive a three-fifths majority in both houses. It would not affect the 2008 election, but “shall become effective Jan. 1, 2009.”
Legislative approval, says John Sanders, “is the biggest hurdle.” Why? Because no legislator wants to be accused by an opponent in the next election of taking away the people’s right to vote.
Barlow Herget is a former Raleigh city councilman and writes the Follow the Money column for the N.C. Center for Voter Education.
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