It seems that Matt Stout’s recent Globe article about the 2022 Lieutenant Governor’s race has revived some perennial critiques the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. For example, Globe columnist Adrian Walker and Northeastern Journalism prof Dan Kennedy, two keen analysts of Massachusetts politics, were both moved by Stout’s piece to announce their low opinions of the Office of Lieutenant Governor on social media. In a tweet, Kennedy suggested that both the Office of Lieutenant Governor and the Governor’s Council ought to be eliminated, while Walker called the lieutenant governorship “useless” in a Facebook post. While I understand this perspective, and acknowledge its logic up to a point, I would like to argue that Massachusetts lieutenant governors are more useful to modern governors than is popularly believed and that the idea that lieutenant governors are obsolete or useless doesn’t apply to the Bay State’s 21st Office of the Lieutenant Governor.
For a thoughtful defense of lieutenant governors in general, I recommend THIS thoughtful 1986 Washington Post op-ed by John Mutz, then Indiana’s lieutenant governor and chairman of the National Conference of lieutenant governors. It’s concise and includes the following humorous anecdote featuring Massachusetts’ own Calvin Coolidge:
One evening when Silent Cal was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, he was seated next to an attractive woman at an official dinner. “Tell me,” she gushed, “what do you do?” “I’m the lieutenant governor,” he said. “That’s wonderful. Tell me all about it,” his dinner companion requested. “I just did,” was the succinct reply.*
A much more thorough exposition of my underlying assumptions in this post can be found in The Governor of the Commonwealth: A “not so” Supreme Executive Magistrate, which appears in the MassPoliticsProfs’ forthcoming book, The Politics of Massachusetts Exceptionalism.
Massachusetts governors preside over a vast bureaucracy that is only made more complicated by the fact that there are several other constitutional executive officers in our state government, including the Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of the Commonwealth, Treasurer, & Auditor. Unlike the others, the lieutenant governor is entirely at the governor’s disposal. While the administrative responsibilities of the corner office are vast and complicated, governors have the help of directly appointed cabinet secretaries (created by statutory executive reorganization in 1969), it is the political responsibilities of the job that make lieutenant governors valuable assets. The utility of this political partnership between governors and lieutenant governors was essentially ratified in 1966 when the state constitution was amended to require candidates for both jobs to run on the same ticket.
Modern Massachusetts governors have explicitly characterized their relationships with their lieutenant governors as “partnerships” for good reason. Capable lieutenants are valuable in the management of the governor’s political relationships with key constituencies and special interests. Because lieutenant governors are also duly elected statewide officials, they can speak authoritatively for the boss publicly and with influential stakeholders (especially those who might be unenthusiastic about having to deal with a mere staffer or appointed bureaucrat). Modern Massachusetts lieutenant governors have become particularly valuable to governors as their point people with local government officials, and as point people on policy areas that give governors credibility with policy networks they might otherwise have little time or interest to cultivate. Lieutenant governors cultivate and maintain working relationships with powerful constituencies in and out of state government, ideally, helping the governor earn the trust of a broader array of groups and interests in the state than they could have earned on their own. Were they just glad handers and ribbon cutters, lieutenant governors wouldn’t have the clout to serve their bosses in this way. Understood as genuine partners with the governor, as well as statewide leaders in their own right, modern Massachusetts lieutenant governors have made important contributions to gubernatorial effectiveness and success. I suppose that critics of the lieutenant governorship might be thinking that taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for enhancing the governor’s political standing, but I disagree.
Massachusetts governors must be successful politicians in order to be successful policymakers and administrative managers. The unique circumstances of the Massachusetts governorship make political influence and policy/administrative accomplishment more inseparable and simultaneous than in any other governorship in America. During his three terms in the corner office, as well as during his four-year hiatus after his first term, Mike Dukakis developed what he calls the “leader-manager” model of governing from the corner office. The key to this approach, which has been imitated by every Bay State governor since Dukakis, is the ability “to bring interested and contending individuals and groups into decision-making processes on their own terms and to consciously strive to achieve sufficient buy-in from key stakeholders in order to move forward without unnecessarily burning political bridges.” (The Politics of Massachusetts Exceptionalism, P. 134) Dukakis learned this lesson the hard way, but in so doing he bequeathed an invaluable perspective on the job of governor to his successors. As running mates and governing partners, lieutenant governors make it much easier for 21st century Massachusetts governors to take advantage of Dukakis’ blueprint for integrating the political and managerial leadership aspects of the top job.
Massachusetts politics “ain’t beanbag” and no modern governor can effectively conduct the Commonwealth’s business at the statehouse without an efficient and effective political and administrative management operation. Lieutenant governors, by shouldering important parts of the governor’s political responsibilities, significantly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Massachusetts governors. The office also serves, on occasion, as a valuable proving ground for future governors. Ironically, Karyn Polito’s decision to delay her gubernatorial ambitions, despite having been an effective lieutenant governor for the past eight years, probably reflects political savvy that would help make her a successful governor.