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The Lieutenant Governor and the Chief of Staff
A major issue in any new gubernatorial administration is this: What the heck do you do with the lieutenant governor? A related, and very important, issue is this: How are roles and responsibilities divided between the chief of staff and the lieutenant governor? Another way to put it is this: When the governor is away, who’s in charge – the chief of staff or the lieutenant governor?
Those are issues that Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman, Lt. Gov.-elect Gary Herbert, and newly appointed Chief of Staff Jason Chaffetz are going to have to work out.
There’s no single correct way to organize a governor’s office and a new administration. It really depends on the governor’s preferences and the personalities and abilities of the people involved. There’s more than one good model. The lieutenant governor does have some specific duties, like overseeing the state Elections Office. And there is a fair number of ceremonial duties. When the governor can’t do a speech or an appearance that is deemed important, the lieutenant governor can fill in. But as a practical matter, the lieutenant governor can be assigned according to the pleasure of the governor.
In the Leavitt administration, Lt. Gov. Olene Walker played key roles and had significant responsibilities. She did a lot of speeches, appearances and ceremonial duties, but she also took on some very significant projects such as health care reform and some agency reorganization. She was something of a troubleshooter for Leavitt, tackling tough problems and dealing with specific issues he asked her to undertake.
But Chief of Staff Charlie Johnson was clearly the COO of the state. He dealt with the agencies on a day-to-day basis, ran the governor’s office, oversaw personnel matters, and usually conducted Cabinet meetings when Leavitt wasn’t around.
So how will Herbert and Chaffetz divide up the duties? My guess is the roles will be quite different than the Walker-Johnson days. Johnson had years of management and budget experience, while Chaffetz is much less experienced. I'm guessing that Herbert will play more of the Charlie Johnson role as COO, while Chaffetz will focus more on directly supporting the governor and his top priorities. That’s actually another good model to follow, where the chief of staff, instead of running the state, is directly responsible for getting the governor’s key priorities accomplished. It will be interesting to see how Huntsman, Herbert and Chaffetz work things out.
Tax Reform Documents
Gov. Olene Walker’s tax reform plan was late, but it is substantive. It certainly gives the new Huntsman administration and state legislators some good data, ideas, and places to start their own efforts. It will add to the dialogue and will have been a worthwhile effort even if not much of it is ever implemented. For a governor’s office press release on the plan click here. At the bottom of the press release are links to the entire document and appendices.
Top Issues of 2005 Session
For anyone preparing for the 2005 legislative session, links to some important documents have been posted on this page on the legislative Web site. The page provides links to a 2005 legislative calendar, key issues of the session, and significant factors driving state budgets.
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