THE PRINCIPLES OF THE COMMISSION FORM OF GOVERNMENT APPLIED TO THE STATE
The principles at the basis of the commission form of government for
cities may equally well be applied to a state government.
Our first care must be to eliminate the division of power which comes
from having two legislative chambers, each equally representing the
electorate. The legislative power as it comes from the electorate at
large must be lodged in a single legislative chamber.
In the second place we must provide for the election of members to
this single chamber from “quotas” or districts which are as wieldy
as possible. One member should be elected by each “quota” or from
each district.[15] The requirement that districts or “quotas” which
elect members be wieldy is so important that it must determine the
minimum number of members in the single legislative chamber. If it be
determined that a district or “quota” with 4,000 male voters would be
suitably wieldy, then each district would contain a population of about
25,000, and for a state like Illinois there would be 200 districts.
Lastly, following the commission form of government for cities we must
place the control of the entire executive power in the hands of this
single legislative chamber. In short, we must apply the principle
of uniting the executive and the legislative power in the same body.
How, it will be asked, can this be done? It is essential that the
legislature should have two hundred members so that the districts
or “quotas” may be wieldy. How, then, is it possible to give to the
legislature control of the executive power?
It is believed that the plan of a state executive selected by the
single-chamber legislature and holding at its pleasure, after the
manner of the controlled executive for the larger cities, will not
do. It is true the state executive may not handle so large a budget
as some cities, but the state executive power is not for that reason
less important or extensive. The legislative power of the state, which
is greater than the legislative power of any city, may build up the
state executive functions so that they are quite beyond those of any
city. The state executive functions are, therefore, always potentially
more extensive than those of the city executive. Then in the state
legislature composed of one hundred members or more representing
different political and party programs, there are far greater chances
of a serious deadlock than in a city council. When a deadlock occurs
in the state legislature it may be difficult, if not impossible, to
determine what are the controlling elements in the legislative assembly
if the power of selection is left with the legislature itself. There is
need, therefore, of an independent authority outside the legislature
to select from it those who shall wield the executive power and
thus rescue the exercise of that power from any deadlock among the
legislators.
These considerations lead naturally to the following plan: All
executive acts must be done as now, in the name of a single executive.
But the control of all executive acts must be placed in the hands of
a council of state, to be composed of (let us say) seven members,
who should usually be drawn from the leaders of the regularly voting
majority of the legislative chamber. It will be the important duty
of the single executive to determine who are the regularly voting
majority, and who are its leaders, to summon them to form a council
of state, to determine when those leaders have ceased to possess a
regularly voting majority and, when that occurs, to dismiss them or
accept their resignations and replace them with a council of state
which has at its command a regularly voting majority. Once the council
of state is selected, however, the actual control of the executive
function will reside in it. Thus the real executive is the council of
state, and since it must usually control a majority of the legislature,
it will have possession of the legislative power as well. This is the
neat and feasible scheme for applying the essential principle of the
commission form of government when a large representative assembly is a
necessity. The method of selecting the single executive whose principal
duty it is to place the executive power of the state from time to
time in the control of a proper council of state, selected from among
the leaders of a majority of the legislature, is not very important.
Very likely the only practicable way would be by election at large at
considerable intervals of time.
Very little alteration in our present state constitutions is necessary
in order to bring about the greater part of the change in the plan of
government suggested. The members of the lower house of the legislature
are usually elected from fairly wieldy districts. The union of the
executive and legislative functions is very simply accomplished by
dropping from the list of elective officers the lieutenant-governor,
the secretary of state, the auditor of public accounts, the treasurer,
the superintendent of public instruction, the attorney-general, and
others and adding the following provisions:
There shall be an executive council to advise the governor in the
government of the state. The members thereof shall be chosen and
summoned by the governor and serve as executive councilors. They shall
hold office during the pleasure of the governor.
The executive power vested in the governor by this constitution
shall, unless in this constitution otherwise specified, be exercised
by the governor acting with the advice of the executive council. The
provisions of this constitution, referring to the governor in council,
shall be construed as referring to the governor acting with the advice
of the executive council.
The governor may appoint officers not exceeding ten in number to
administer such departments of the state as the governor in council
may establish and until such establishment, to administer the
departments of state, public accounts, treasury, public instruction,
justice, and state institutions. Such officers shall hold office
during the pleasure of the governor. They shall be the members of the
executive council and after the first general election of members of
the general assembly, as herein provided, _no member of the executive
council shall hold office for a longer period than three months unless
he is or becomes a member of either house[16] of the general assembly_.
The necessary result of such changes would be that the governor could
do no important act without the consent of the council. The council
would in fact be the executive. The election which put the governor in
office might be expected to put a majority of the same party in the
legislature, and the executive council would naturally be selected from
the leaders of that majority. Even if the governor and the majority of
the legislature belonged to different parties, yet there would be the
strongest motive for the selection of an executive council from the
majority of the legislature, thus avoiding the responsibility for a
contest between the majority in the legislature and the executive which
would throw the government into confusion.
The complete success of a plan which involves the union of the
executive and legislative power in the leaders of a majority of
the legislature requires the presence in the legislature of some
at least of the leaders of the principal parties. The absence from
the legislature of such leaders would leave the control of the most
important powers of government in the hands of the less experienced
and less able members of the party. The opposition also might have
a less effective representation. This would be a serious matter for
the parties themselves. The public service also would suffer. It is
in the interest of the best administration of the affairs of state
that the ability and experience of the party leaders of both the
majority and the minority be kept in the service of the state as long
as possible. It is also important that the executive and legislative
powers be exercised for the benefit of the state as a whole and not
for the purpose of furthering the parochial interests of individual
legislators. This is most surely accomplished by the presence in the
legislature of the party leaders of the majority. There are several
ways of insuring the return to the legislature of some at least of the
leaders of the principal parties, even when they may not be able to
secure a plurality of the votes cast in the district where they run:
First, candidates for the legislature may be permitted to stand for
election in any district of the state, no matter where they reside.
That does not go far, however, in the direction of returning party
leaders unless elections are held at different times in different
districts. Second, if elections are held at the same time in all
districts the elector might be permitted to vote for a candidate
running in his own or any other district. This would enable the party
to switch some of its votes in a district where it was strong to
special leaders standing for election in districts where their success
was in doubt. This is one of the proposals of the People’s Power
League of Oregon. Third, a direct way of accomplishing the desired
result would be to permit each party polling at least 25 per cent of
the total vote cast at an election for members of the legislature to
appoint as many representatives as the entire party vote contains
tenths of the total vote cast. Fourth, the same result might be
obtained by providing for the election at large of a small number of
legislators by “quotas,” according to the Hare plan.[17]
Now observe the effect of the application of the principles of the
commission form of government for cities to the state government. The
office of legislator has been made important and conspicuous because it
is the only office in the state government (except that of governor)
for which the voter casts his ballot, and because the successful
candidate will cast one of two hundred ballots for the selection of
the real executive. Under such a system it is certain that the voter
will know in advance that a vote for candidate A means a vote for B,
as the real executive or leader of the council of state. Thus a vote
for state legislator will be a vote to confer the entire legislative
and executive power of the state upon a given group of legislators
and their leaders. We have indeed made the voting privilege of the
elector so important that he will not only be sure to vote, but he
may be expected to do much to keep himself fully informed about the
candidates. We have made the act of voting so simple that the elector
cannot fail to use such intelligence as he has and to spend any extra
time which he may have in informing himself further. By providing for
the election of single legislators from wieldy districts or by wieldy
“quotas” we have brought the voter as near the candidates as possible.
By stimulating the number of candidates we have given the voter as
wide a range of choice as possible. These devices all have a tendency
to eliminate the politically ignorant vote. The actual intelligence of
the electorate is given the fullest possible play, and even stimulated
to unusual efforts of comprehension. This is a guaranty, and it is the
only guaranty, against that political ignorance on the part of a large
number of voters which provides the opportunity for the professional
politician to step in and, in the guise of advising and directing the
voter how to vote, in effect to cast his ballot for him. The essential
condition upon which a vote-directing political machine is founded and
maintained has, therefore, been eliminated. Under such circumstances
a vote-directing machine, instead of slipping over, in the darkness
and obscurity which comes from a multiplicity of elections and offices
to be filled, those whom it can control, for ends of which the
electorate does not really approve, must begin to appeal to the voter’s
intelligence with candidates of character, arguments, platforms, and
pledges of legislation which those elected have the power to keep.
Such activities on the part of any organization will at once change it
from a mere vote-directing machine into a legitimate party with real
principles and a real program. The leaders of such an organization
will necessarily stand for election in the real government, which will
now be the legal government. Real party leaders will appear in the
legislature with real party programs for legislation and real party
responsibility.
We have, however, in the scheme of state government presented, not
only done our utmost to destroy at the roots extra-legal unpopular
government, but we have provided a government which can operate. We
have cut off all bickering between the legislature and executive. We
have given power to an executive council which will enable it to do
something. We have constituted a government which will be inactive,
not because its hands are tied, but because it chooses not to do
anything. The leader of the successful party cannot say that he has
failed to keep the party pledges because he had no power to act. No
one, however, need fear that the concentration of power in the hands of
a few will prove in any way dangerous to the liberties of the people.
The council of state can exercise power only so long as it retains the
confidence of a majority in the legislature. Even out of the season
of elections the legislature will necessarily be sensitive to public
opinion, and a council of state that did not consider the effect of
public opinion upon a majority of the members of the legislature could
not long hold power. By frequent elections the majority may be changed
and the council recalled in favor of the leader of an opposition. The
effectiveness of voting will thus be enormously increased, for the
electorate will not have to turn out a dozen different officers at
several different elections in order to change control of the legal
government. Voting at a single election does it. Upon a poll of the
districts or of the “quotas” it is determined whether one set of
legislators or another shall control the executive and legislative
power centered in a single chamber. No government can be unpopular
or an executive council remain in office against the will of the
electorate under such a scheme of government. No government can remain
in office and avoid the consequences of failure and inefficiency when
so organized.
If such a scheme of government does not break the malign influence
of an extra-legal government founded upon a vote-directing machine,
then such a power cannot be broken. If the scheme of government which
has been outlined does not give the electorate a real opportunity to
express its will through its representatives and to make that will into
law and then enforce the law through those same representatives, then
our attempt to achieve representative government will have failed and
we shall have been unsuccessful in securing that which other nations,
even though in form at least still governed by kings, have been able to
achieve.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] The Illinois plan of minority representation in the legislature
provides for the election of three representatives from each district
and allows each voter to cast three votes as he pleases, one for each
candidate or three for one candidate or one and a half for each of two
candidates. Where extra-legal government by politocrats is strong, this
has for years resulted in members of the legislature being appointed
by the extra-legal government. The electorate has been wholly and
palpably disfranchised. If there are two political machines in the
district, one dominant and the other with a fair strength, they have
by agreement between them arranged that the dominant machine should
nominate only two candidates and the other only one. Thus the voter is
given no choice whatever and the nominations are an appointment. If
there are three equally strong political machines, each by agreement
will nominate one candidate. As a matter of fact without agreement the
number of candidates nominated will usually be as above indicated under
the circumstances named. Thus the electorate in very many Illinois
districts has had comparatively little or no real representation in
the lower house of the legislature for years. The worst elements in
the house have under this system been returned again and again. See
editorial in the _Chicago Tribune_ for December 22, 1912, on “Minority
Representation.”
[16] This assumes the existence of a second chamber as suggested in
chap. xvi.
[17] See _ante_, p. 153.