Oregon needs a lieutenant governor
A spate of secretary of state vacancies have complicated the state's gubernatorial succession process
Yesterday, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek named former Portland City Auditor LaVonne Griffin-Valade as the state’s next Secretary of State, replacing Shemia Fagan, who resigned in May. Whether Griffin-Valade will run for re-election is unclear—she’d previously left elected politics to write crime novels that seem to have good reviews—and her appointment seemed to come as a surprise to Oregon politicos.
As an appointed Secretary of State, Griffin-Valade most all of the office’s duties—she’ll be the state’s chief election administrator during the 2024 election—but she will not be in the line of gubernatorial succession. Instead, for the next two years, State Treasurer Tobias Read will be first in the line of succession should anything happen to Governor Kotek.
Because Oregon has no lieutenant governor, the Secretary of State is first in the line of succession. Throughout the state’s history, four secretaries of state have become governor following a vacancy1—most recently in 2015, when Secretary of State Kate Brown stepped in following Governor John Kitzhaber’s resignation.
While this is an unusual method of gubernatorial succession, Oregon is certainly not alone. Elected secretaries of state in Arizona2 and Wyoming are also the first in the line of gubernatorial succession, and Puerto Rico’s appointed secretary of state is first in line, too.
However, since 1972, Oregon has a special rule that prevents the Secretary of State from becoming Governor if they were appointed to the role. In that case, the line of succession skips to the second in line, the State Treasurer.3 Since the rule was adopted 50 years ago, it has been activated five separate times,4 meaning that for eight of the last fifty years, the line of succession has skipped to the Treasurer.
This is a bonkers rule. While it may have been motivated by something resembling a democratic impulse, it has the practical effect of subverting voters’ expectations. It should be repealed—but, ideally, it should be totally replaced with a new system. Instead of having the Secretary of State as the governor-in-waiting, Oregon should elect a governor and lieutenant governor on the same ticket.
Understanding Oregon’s system of gubernatorial succession requires unwrapping 150 years of state constitutional history. In the very beginning, Oregon’s 1857 Constitution designated the Secretary of State as the Governor’s successor.
. . . mostly. The actual language of the 1857 Constitution, in Article V, Section 8, was:
In case of the removal of the governor from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the duties of the office, the same shall devolve on the secretary of state[.]
This language might seem like overly formal legal gloss, but the words here are fairly common in state constitutional succession provisions—and courts have taken the individual words seriously. Note, for example, that Section 8 doesn’t literally say, “In case of the removal of the governor from office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the duties of his office, the secretary of state shall become governor.” No, instead, it says that “the same shall devolve on the secretary of state.”
What is “the same”? In 1884, the Oregon Supreme Court explained that “the same” refers to “the office.” In 1919, the court clarified that, when the secretary of state becomes governor, they actually hold both offices—and can even draw paychecks for both offices, too!
The court’s 1919 decision was concerning to the state legislature, so they proposed a constitutional amendment at a May 21, 1920, special election that provided:
In case of the removal from office of the governor, or of his death, resignation, absence from the state or other inability to discharge the duties of the office, the president of the senate shall become governor until the disability is removed, or until the vacancy is filled at the next general biennial election . . . . The governor elected to fill the vacancy shall hold office for the unexpired term of the outgoing governor.
Rather helpfully, Oregon has distributed voter pamphlets for more than century, and has allowed the drafters of constitutional amendments and statutes presented to voters the opportunity to articulate their arguments in the pamphlet. The state legislature’s argument in favor of the amendment explained that the state board of control, which supervised institutions like the state hospital and prison, had three members: the governor, secretary of state, and treasurer. In the event of a gubernatorial vacancy, the secretary of state would become governor and remain secretary of state, giving this person total control over the board of control—“in direct conflict with the fundamental principle that three men shall share this responsibility.”
Oregon voters ratified the amendment by a wide margin, 58-42%, and from there on, the state senate president was first in the line of gubernatorial succession. The 1920 amendment also added the proviso that the senate president would serve as governor in the event of the governor’s “absence from the state,” which did not exist in the 1857 language.
Three gubernatorial successions took place under the new procedure adopted by this amendment—including in 1947,5 when the governor, secretary of state, and senate president were all killed in a plane crash (likely the only such event that has ever taken place in U.S. history), resulting in House Speaker John Hubert Hall serving as governor until a 1948 special election.
More dissatisfaction resulted from this procedure, though. A group of Oregon voters formed the an organization—Oregonians to Reform Executive Succession—to propose a new succession procedure in 1972. Their constitutional amendment, which was overwhelmingly ratified by voters, essentially repealed the 1920 amendment. It reordered the line of succession to consist of (1) the elected secretary of state, (2) the elected treasurer, (3) the senate president, and (4) the house speaker. ORES noted that
the Senate President and House Speaker are elected to those offices by a minimum of 16 votes in the Senate and 31 in the House; after each has been elected in his own single member Legislative district. The Secretary of State and the State Treasurer are elected state-wide.
The ORES amendment added in the stipulation that, if there was a vacancy in the secretary of state’s or treasurer’s office, the appointee “shall not be eligible to succeed to the office of Governor by automatic succession under this section during the term of his appointment”—which created the current reality.
Wouldn’t a lieutenant governor just be simpler?
Admittedly, Oregon voters have rejected the creation of a lieutenant governor four times—in 1912, 1914, 1919, and 1930—but in a new century, and having endured a lot of bizarre gubernatorial vacancies, perhaps they would feel differently.
Moreover, a lieutenant governor is an ambiguity-eater. All of the weird quirks and odd questions that arise when anyone else—like a senate president or secretary of state—becomes governor are obliterated by the presence of a lieutenant governor. There are also no questions as to democratic legitimacy if the governor and lieutenant governor are elected together—voters elected both of them, and the lieutenant governor to a job where the only major responsibility is succeeding the governor. The person serving as lieutenant governor might get bored with their near-total lack of policymaking responsibilities, but that boredom is worth the benefits in avoiding serious ambiguities and problems of democratic legitimacy.
In 1877, Governor La Fayette Grover was elected to the U.S. Senate, and Secretary of State Stephen Chadwick succeeded him. In 1909, Governor George Chamberlain was elected to the U.S. Senate, and Secretary of State Frank Benson succeeded him. Benson, in turn, fell ill and transferred his powers to the State Senate President, Jay Bowerman. In 1919, Governor James Withycombe died in office, and Secretary of State Ben Olcott succeeded him. And in 2015, when Governor John Kitzhaber resigned, Secretary of State Kate Brown succeeded him.
In the 2022 election, Arizona voters ratified a constitutional amendment that created a lieutenant governor starting in the 2026 election, so Arizona will soon leave this tiny club.
So does membership in the National Lieutenant Governors Association, which ordinarily lists the Secretary of State as a member, but lists the Treasurer when there’s an appointed Secretary.
Secretary of State Barbara Roberts was elected Governor in 1990, and she appointed Phil Keisling as her successor. Keisling was elected to a full term in 1992—allowing him to shed his appointee label and take his place in the line of successor. Keisling was re-elected in 1996, but resigned in 1999, resulting in Bill Bradbury’s appointment. Bradbury was re-elected in 2000 and 2004, and he was succeeded by Kate Brown, who was elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012. When Brown became Governor in 2015, she appointed Jeanne Atkins as her successor, who served until the 2016 election, when Dennis Richardson was elected. Richardson died in 2019, and Brown appointed Beverly Clarno as his successor. Clarno served until the 2020 election, when Shemia Fagan was elected, and Fagan resigned in 2013.
Ironically, the 1947 casualties took place just a year after voters ratified a constitutional amendment in 1946 that added the secretary of state and treasurer as third and fourth in the line of gubernatorial succession—though the amendment didn’t change the outcome in 1947. Even more darkly, the argument printed in the 1946 voter pamphlet included this unfortunately unintentional prediction:
The proposed amendment would cover any possible contingency that might arise. It may be unlikely that the state will ever have to face an emergency wherein the governor, the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives should each die or be unable to serve, but should this occur the proposed amendment would cover the emergency and provide for an orderly prosecution of state business.