Can Howie the Hack Be New Mexico's Last Lieutenant Governor?
For Throwback Wednesday, the case against a sickening sinecure
Less than three weeks ‘til Election Day. Figure it’s a good time to attack lieutenant governors, the most useless pols in state government. This column ran three years ago. Nothing’s changed. They’re still the worst.
If there were a poster politician for everything that’s wrong with government in New Mexico, that “public servant” would be Howie Morales.
Currently the Land of Enchantment’s lieutenant governor, the one-time educrat, county clerk, government hospital “executive” and state senator has spent his entire adult life on the public payroll. The Democrat possesses a perfect résumé for a sinecure that should not exist.
Five states lack lieutenant governors. In Tennessee and West Virginia, the titles are honorary, and held by state senate leaders.
For those seeking common ground between the right and left, the widespread existence of lieutenant governors provides surprisingly solid footing. In 2013, neocon Jeff Jacoby wrote that in Massachusetts, the position has “no useful constitutional function, apart from succeeding a governor who dies or resigns,” but provides a salary and “a staff and a State House office [with] all the perks of a lofty political title.”
In 2015, Laurie Roberts, a conservative columnist for The Arizona Republic, called it “yet another elective post for aspiring politicians, and argued that it’s “just fine to have the secretary of state jump in if the governor moves on to greener pastures — or, as sometimes happens, a criminal trial.”
In 2017, the liberal editorial page of The Roanoke Times averred that the post “exists purely for political reasons,” and is “simply welfare for ambitious politicians.” (It endorsed a “constitutional amendment to abolish the office.”) That same year, Harrisburg’s left-leaning Patriot-News urged Pennsylvanians to ditch “this largely ceremonial and irrelevant office once and for all.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to No Dowd About It to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.