Power Struggles

Every once in a great while there's an event that's a gift to pundits, real and wannabe.  Such an event is the recent legislature coup of the office of Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction and the accompanying delusional announcement by the deposed of her intent to run for Governor. What a show!

I'll have to admit that I have paid next to no attention to the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.  That probably speaks poorly of me, but I really haven't paid it much regard.  I suspect, however, that I'm not the only one who hasn't been following it, and that's part of the problem..  Cindy Hill, the current occupant, has not been popular and has been under the gun for some time, but she did secure election in spite of the Democrats running Mike Massey, who is generally well regarded.   That combined event probably tells us how very dominant the Republican Party has become in the state, and how little attention most of us pay to an office of this type.  Or perhaps her performance has met expectations, or other events during her period of office have lead to discontent.  I honestly cannot say, as it's just not an office that I pay very much attention to, even though I should.

Plagued with all sorts of criticism, Mrs. Hill has been in continual controversy nearly the entire time she's been in office, and feelings that she's ill equipped to occupy that office have been very widespread, in spite of the voters causing her occupation of it.  While they deny that Mrs. Hill is the reason for their actions, and they're denials are probably partially correct, the Legislature got into the game this session (with Mr. Massey being one of the bill sponsors) and passed an act removing nearly every power that Mrs. Hill has and vesting it in a new officer, who is to be a Gubernatorial appointee.

Frankly, the action in creating an appointed eduction secretary was long overdue, but frankly, I think its uunconstitutional under the Wyoming Constitution.  The State Attorney General feels otherwise, and the Governor has signed the act into law, but Mrs. Hill has sued, with a couple of supporters, and this is obviously headed to our Supreme Court.  Mrs. Hill, moreover, is not a stranger to the law herself, as she is a lawyer also.  Now, apparently not content with taking this on in court, and operating under a delusion that election to an office that most voters weren't paying attention to equates with real support, Mrs. Hill has announced that she's running for Governor. She's going to fail massively.

Well, what of all of this?

First, her lawsuit raises a real point.  And it's a point that's steeped in Wyoming's history.

Education is, by virtue of an opinion of the Wyoming Supreme Court, a fundamental right in Wyoming.  That the framers of the state's constitution, moreover, would choose to have it placed under an elected officer is not a surprise, in the 19th Century context of the early history of the state.  At that time Wyoming was one of the state's heavily influenced by budding Progressivism which, amongst its other tenants, sought an expansion of the franchise, both in who could vote, and what and who people could vote on.  Beyond that, the framers of the Constitution, at that time, were making a bold statement on how important they thought education was.

At the time Wyoming adopted its constitution, not every state had state run public schools.  Education was regarded as extremely important in the new Western states and they wanted to make sure that an education was offered to all, and that it was a real education.  By placing it under an elected Superintendent, the framers were assuring that education would be real everywhere in the state, a much more difficult proposition than people now would generally understand.  Indeed, in many Wyoming towns there was little in the way of public education, and what their was generally existed via local subscription, which was uneven, and often temporary.  The importance of the office to the framers was further demonstrated by the fact that the Superintendent has a place on the State Land Board, which makes sense given that the State's lands were intended to be the source of funding for the State's schools.

This served the early state well, and has served the state fairly well for over a century, but there's evidence now that the system is falling short.  Mrs. Hill is the third Superintendent in a row that has been subject to stout criticism, and at least the last one was faced with a barrage of criticism relating to testing requirements that he wasn't responsible for, but for which he became the focus of.   It's becoming an office that is seemingly becoming more difficult for an elected official to fulfill.  Perhaps in this more technical and professional era, that should not be a surprise.

Education has become much more the province of professionals at all levels in recent years, and the administration of it is generally both bureaucratic by necessity and scientific.  It makes much more sense, in the view of many, to have the state Department of Education appointed by an officer chosen by the Governor, and now that's the law.  This would mirror, on a grander scale, how the various school districts operate, with each having an elected school board, but with that board hiring a district administrator who handles the day to day operation of the district.


The newly passed legislation had that goal in mind, but it only partially achieved it.  The office of Superintendent still remains, but without any power, other than to sit on the State Land Board, which would mean that in order to be Constitutional the Constitution would have to allow for the appointment of officers with no real role to play in anything.

But it's probably not Constitutional. And it wouldn't have come up at this time but for the widespread legislative discontent with Mrs. Hill.

The reason that Mrs.Hill is correct, in my view, of her reading of the State Constitution is that the Constitution cannot be presumed to create an executive office which the Legislature could deprive of power.  If the Legislature can eliminate the power of the Superintendent, then it can do the same with any other executive position, perhaps even the Governor's office.  But I doubt that it can do that.  It was clearly the intent of the framers that the Superintendent would have real supervisory power, and the Legislature cannot legislate that away.

What should really occur, and I am sure will occur, is that the state Constitution needs to be amended by the electorate to allow for this office to be eliminated and a new Cabinet type office appointed.  We don't, after all, vote on the office of State Attorney General, and there's no really good reason anymore why we should vote on this office.  I'm fairly confident that most voters would agree.  And in declaring the Legislature's actions a coup, Cindy Hill is basically correct.  And, of course, if the voters decided to vote no, it would mean that the opinion of the electorate directly disagrees with the Legislature, and the Legislature cannot take this step.  I don't think that will occur, however.

Mrs. Hill shouldn't take comfort in that however, and her announcement of her intent to run for Governor is a bit delusional.  She's not going to win the primary, and she's going to look even more discredited than she already does.  This is not a dignified way to proceed, in light of what's going on.  It's easy to see how she could have come to this mistaken impression, however, as she seems to have some dedicated followers.  While listening to a person's friends can be a wise course of action, in a matter like this not letting in the opposite opinions can be a terrible mistake.

So, what I'm fairly confident what we'll see is this. Her lawsuit stands a good chance of prevailing.  And, as a result, in the next Legislative session a bill to amend the state Constitution will be passed. That'll go to the electorate in November, 2014, at the same time that Ms. Hill will see Governor Mead likely reelected.  Her office will likely simply cease to exist in January 2015.

The one thing that this doesn't address, of course, is whether the State Superintendent of Education should be elected or not. After all, what I've suggested is that the voters shouldn't get to directly choose this position.  And that is what I feel. The executive branch of the state should have the power to appoint a professional to the position, and if we do not like that, that would be part of the issues taken up when the Governor ran for reelection.  It'd be a position similar to the State Attorney General, or State Geologist, if done that way.  Given the increasing demands upon eduction in this modern world, that seems like the best option.

It does make for less democracy of course, and that is troubling. The founders of the State felt that education was so significant to the electorate that the electorate should have a direct say in how it was conducted, at the state level.  Of course, at the time, the State was mostly agricultural and local schools were matters of significant interest and pride.  Now Wyoming's well funded schools are in an environment when many of the students are in them only temporarily, and perhaps the topics that they teach are so vast that things have just changed.  That may be a sad trend, but it appears to reflect reality.  It's a sad situation indeed that things had to become such a circus in order for them to be addressed.