January 31, 2007

A Good Idea Gains Momentum

Nashville City Paper writer John Rodgers reports that a proposal to give voters the responsibility of picking the state's four constitutional officers "could gain new momentum with Republicans and Sen. Rosalind Kurita now controlling the state Senate."

Under the state constitution the Legislature elects the treasurer, secretary of state and the comptroller, while the state Supreme Court picks the state attorney general. Sen. Kurita, the Clarksville Democrat who backed Republican Ron Ramsey for Senate Speaker, has long pushed amending the constitution to allow the people of Tennessee to elect those offices. The City Paper says many Republicans have been backing the popular election of the constitutional officers, and Kurita has newfound ties to the GOP.

I have always agreed with Kurita's view that the secretary of state and the attorney general ought to be elected by the people, though I had been less certain that the treasurer and comptroller should be elected. But last fall the supposedly "non-political" state treasurer and state comptroller engaged in partisan political campaigning, exposing themselves as political partisans whose reports related to the state's taxes, spending and other matters now must be viewed not as neutral and dispassionate reports but as partisan spin meant to further their party's legislative agenda.

Now that those supposedly non-political offices have been politicized, the partisan politicians that hold those jobs ought to have to face the voters.

See also: today's City Paper editorial.