The Most Powerful Lt. Governor and other bits of Veepology
A Vance-less Veeply Roundup
There is lots of news around VP Vance. Next week we’ll do an in-depth look on his travels, task forces, and future plans. But today, let’s do a long overdue Veeply Roundup, covering the doings of number twos outside the beltway.
The Most Powerful Lieutenant Governor?
A few weeks ago The New York Times ran a story with the headline: “Texas Lt. Governor Says Camp Mystic Shouldn’t Receive License to Reopen.”
As a consumer of local news here in the Old Line State, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a non-election related headline mentioning our terrific Lt. Governor, Aruna Miller. In the next state over, the Lt. Governor’s race made a bit of news, in part because the election is separate from the governor, also some weirdness with the GOP candidate, and that with a potentially closely divided state Senate the office might actually matter.
No one cares what Lt. Governors think or say. They only make news when they are corrupt, vulgar, or weird.
Lieutenant Governors are like vice presidents, only more so.
So why was a lieutenant governor from a distant state mentioned in a headline in our nation’s leading newspaper on a policy matter (as opposed to a juicy scandal)?
The Lt. Gov. of Texas is the most powerful lieutenant governor in the country.
Yawn.
Seriously. The Lt. Gov. of Texas does not merely preside over the state Senate, they actually run the body. They make committee assignments, including picking committee chairs. They can exert control over what bills and motions get to the floor. This is unique to Texas, in most other states either the Majority Leader or a Senate President selected by the body fulfills this function. Further, these powers are not enshrined in the state Constitution, they are derived from the Texas State Senate’s own rules. In theory, the state Senate could strip the lieutenant governor of these powers. But it would take a lot of doing to pull it off since the Senate President stacks the committees with allies and controls the floor action.
By most accounts the Lt. Gov. in Texas is the most powerful politician in the state. They are elected separately from the governor. George W. Bush, as a GOP governor of Texas, worked closely with the Democratic Lt. Gov. Don Bullock. Dan Patrick, the current Lt. Gov, has by most accounts been adroit at shifting the state politics in his preferred hard right direction, although he can be flexible when it suits him.
It would be interesting to look at Texas history and see how things play out when the Lt. Governor is not from the party that holds the majority of the Senate. (Although this may not have ever happened.)
In Texas, when Lt. Governor Dan Patrick speaks people pay close attention. In context it is unsurprising that the most powerful politician in our nation’s second largest state makes news around the country.
Veep Impeached…again?
The vice president of the Philippines, Sara Duterte, is being impeached. There was an attempt to impeach her last year that floundered on procedural grounds. But now the House of Representatives is going to try again. The impeachment is part of an ongoing feud between the President of hte Philippines, Bong-Bong Marcos, and the VP. The offices are elected separately and the president is limited to one term. Duterte is gearing up to run for president, but Marcos would prefer a successor from his own clan.
There’s a lot more to it! The VP’s father, a former President, is on trial in The Hague for war crimes.
To Kill a Veep
When our war with Iran started, I re-upped a post on the Iranian vice presidency—with some updates about the current office holder, Mohammad Reza Aref.
According to Iranian media, Iran’s VP narrowly escaped death when Israel bombed a compound he was visiting on March 15. It isn’t clear if the VP was targeted, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Given the incredible penetration of Israeli intelligence into the Iranian regime, the odds are strong that this was targeted.
I’ve studied assassination attempts on U.S. vice presidents, but attempts on the lives of foreign vice presidents is an entirely new domain. My finding was, perhaps counter-intuitive, that attempts on the lives of U.S. vice presidents were not the acts of madmen, but rather had clear political purposes. If Israel was targeting Iran’s vice president, here too, it was a political action.