Powers of

the executive

in relation

best way to guard our money was to make the treasurer ineligible to succeed himself. According to the information I get from the newspapers, the Treasurers of the States of Mississippi, Maryland and some other states, as well as the treasurer of the State of Kentucky, had adopted the habit of using the State money for the purpose of securing their succeeding election. Now, all must admit that this is an evil. . . . Master Commissioners have made use of moneys to secure the election of the judge who would appoint them, and the treasurer might use the same method to secure the election of a Governor. Therefore, the safest and best business plan was to make him ineligible for a second election, or to succeed himself; and by making him ineligible to succeed himself we withdraw from him every inducement to make use of the State money to re-elect himself.

174. The Growth of Executive Influence *

Mr. Gamaliel Bradford, an eminent publicist and careful observer of American institutions, thus describes what he regards as one of the marked tendencies of American political evolution in recent years:

Even contemporaries are able to note the beginnings of silent innovation. Of all of its bearings, they may be but dimly aware, to legislation. yet they can see that a real change is slowly taking place. One such lies upon the surface of English politics to-day, and is clearly discernible in our own. We mean the greatly heightened powers of the executive government, in what relates to legislation. In England, the initiative of private members of Parliament has almost entirely disappeared. All the important bills are now government measures, and the government is claiming and getting more and more of the time of the House of Commons. This is a profound change, and represents an entire dislocation of the literary theory of the British Constitution, a hundred and twenty years ago.

But a similar alteration of inherited practice is rapidly invading this country also. The Executive as Legislator is now a familiar

who assume

figure among us. President Roosevelt is not the only exemplar. Executives Governor after Governor has been making of himself the chief legislative fountain of legislation in his State. There is no more suggestive functions. sign of the times. East as well as West, the phenomenon presents itself. Governor La Follette in Wisconsin has been imitated by Governor Johnson of Minnesota and Governor Hoch of Kansas. To the initiative of Governor Hughes of New York comes an immediate response from Governor Woodruff of Connecticut and Governor Fort of New Jersey. All of them press critical matters upon their Legislatures. All of them tacitly assume that the Governor must intervene with prompting and public advocacy of important legislation, or else it will fail. Nor is this attitude much resented by Legislature or Congress. As for the people, they accept it enthusiastically.

with old

Yet how deep a breach with the old ideas and historic practice A breach all this represents, every one must see who stops to think. The practices. jealous isolation of the Executive, in all that relates to law-making (except assent to new statutes) is one of the most vital traditions of Anglo-Saxon constitutional law. Contrast this with the constant appeal, nowadays, to the wishes of President or Governor; with the direct activity of Executives not only in recommending legislation but in sending for members of Congress or of the Legislature to urge them to vote for particular measures; and we begin to understand how long is the road we have travelled.

cance of the movement.

How does all this fit into the democratic theory? What does The signifiit signify in regard to representative institutions? It would be rash to attempt a full and satisfying answer to these questions. We are too near the political development, too much a part of it, to detach ourselves and pass judgment upon it conclusively. Partial answers, however, we may find in the very facts under discussion. It is clear, to begin with, that Congressmen and members of the Legislature are becoming more strictly local representatives. They cannot see beyond their districts. Few of them are nationally-minded or State-minded. In large affairs, affecting all the people, they have lost their initiative, because

The executive represents wider interests.

The question

of the vote for repassage.

their time and strength are taken up with the petty interests of their immediate constituents. For them, they run errands, seek offices, work for local appropriations.

Somebody else has to take the broad view, to look after the nation or the State, while they are absorbed with Buncombe County or Podunk. And this somebody is getting to be more and more the directly elect of all the people. To a President, or Governor, thus chosen, all the people are coming to look increasingly, not merely for administration, but for impulse and driving power in legislation. They may be no wiser than the nominal legislators, but they have a wider outlook, and they feel mightier impulses from the whole citizenship pushing them on. Hence, it is no trouble for democracy to adjust itself to the new practice. Choosing the executive directly, it chooses him now to be the chief medium of progressive and reformatory law-making. If it gets its will done, it cares little about the instrument. If American Congresses and Legislatures are leaving off fighting the Executive, it is because the Executive has come best to represent the whole people.

175. The Veto Power

During the debate in the Kentucky constitutional convention of 1890, over the question as to whether a two-thirds vote should be required in the legislature to pass a bill over the governor's veto, the question of the veto power in all of its bearings was discussed.

MR. CARROLL. Why should we not insert a provision that it shall require two-thirds of the General Assembly to pass a bill over the Governor's veto? Can any good reason be assigned against it? The Governor's veto is not absolute. The power vested in the Executive is simply a qualified one, and the main object of it is to direct the attention of the Legislature to any matter that may have escaped their attention, in order that they may have an opportunity to correct it; and if two-thirds of the members of any General Assembly cannot be found who are willing upon

a reconsideration to pass a bill over the Governor's veto, I insist that that bill must be in itself of questionable propriety, because any laudable measure, any measure beneficial to the best interests of the people of the State, could certainly obtain the vote of twothirds of the members elected to each branch of the General Assembly.

On the other hand, the Legislature, acting as they often do, Distrust of the legishastily and unwisely; passing bills as they often do, without any lature. consideration whatever, can, under the present law and under the report of the Committee as adopted, repass them over the Governor's veto without any difficulty whatever, if they see proper to do so. It is a well-known fact that one of the prime causes for the calling of this Convention was the abuses practiced by the Legislative Department of this State; and I venture the assertion that except for the vicious legislation and the local and special laws of all kinds and character passed by the Legislatures that have met in Kentucky for the past twenty years, that no proposition to call a Constitutional Convention could ever have received a majority of the votes of the people of Kentucky. The people of Kentucky are more in danger from abuses by the Legislative Department than they are from abuses of any other Department of the State Government.

MR. MACKOY. Government is a system of checks and balances, and that government it seems to me is the best in which the powers of government are so arranged as that neither may infringe upon the other, and that one or all combined may not affect the people. We know that the representatives, or the members of the General Assembly, represent more perfectly the will of the whole; that sometimes they come from the people in times of great political excitement, when the entire State may be moved by political questions that are of burning importance. It is upon these occasions that a majority of the Legislature might interfere with and trample upon the rights of the minority, and it is then that the Governor, whose term of office is longer than that branch of the Legislature which reflects most perfectly the will of the people, would

The govconservative

ernor as a

force.

An argument for repassage by majority

vote.

be most likely to stand impartial. The possession of power makes one conservative. The instances are numerous in which men comparatively of no character have been placed in important positions, men who were radical in their opinions, and the moment they have accepted a position of responsibility and power, they have become conservative in their actions. The Governor of Kentucky is the representative of the entire State. He represents every party in the State. He represents not singly the Democratic party or the Republican party, or any other party; but he stands there as the representative of all; and if in a time of public heat and party passion persons composing the General Assembly should be tempted to do something which they would not in calmer moments, it seems to me that the Governor, more than any one else, would be likely to repress the inclination to do wrong by the proper exercise of his veto power.

MR. BECKNER. If the gentleman's amendment prevails, the Governor may say that no bill shall be passed until two-thirds of the members of both Houses elected shall have voted for it, which would be a destruction of the majority rule, and would be the most serious innovation upon our system of Government that could be made. The veto power is given simply for the purpose of calling the attention of the Legislature to inadvertences; to mistakes or to errors it may commit through want of proper consideration, and not to give the Governor more power than the General Assembly has, or, in other words, the people, through their representatives, have. It is conferred in order that someone who has a cool head, who reads carefully what they do, may calmly consider and call their attention to an error in the bill they may have passed; and the representatives of the people have almost always responded by refusing to pass a bill where a mistake had been made. If the Governor, however, should be mistaken in his view, there are one hundred and thirty-eight representatives of the people who sit in this hall, and in the hall across the way, who will correct this mistake, and pass the bill, as they ought to have the right to do; and I cannot imagine any greater mistake