The Governor Wants Every State Office in His Own Hands
Governor Hay will ask the legislature to make every statewide office but his and the lieutenant governor's appointive — a cabinet government for Washington — while a commission tries to untangle a legal code nobody can read.
Olympia, Wash., May 18. — Gov. Hay has determined that when a special session of the legislature is called, he will submit a constitutional amendment for legislative approval. His plan will revolutionize the present form of state government and practically place the entire power in the hands of the governor.
The amendment which Gov. Hay will submit will provide that no state officer be elected, other than the governor and lieutenant-governor. Under his plan the governor will appoint an attorney-general, secretary of state, commissioner of public lands, treasurer, auditor and state superintendent of schools. In other words, there will be a cabinet form of government, similar to that in the nation, with the important exception that there will not be the legislative check, because the state legislature here meets but biennially and such sessions are limited to 60 days.
It is likely Gov. Hay will urge the enactment of a law providing for a competent commission to revise and codify all the state laws. In this he will have the approval of the supreme court, all other state officials and practically the entire bar.
As a matter of fact, not one state officer knows all his legal duties with the possible exception of Land Commissioner Ross. Ross had been assistant attorney-general before his first term as land commissioner and about a year ago spent $500 to have the laws relating to his office codified.
Most of the officers are governed by laws extending as far back as the '50s; laws that have been changed and amended every session since, and nowhere are the laws governing any particular office assembled.
“His plan will revolutionize the present form of state government and practically place the entire power in the hands of the governor.”
Hay's cabinet plan went nowhere — Washington still elects its secretary of state, treasurer, auditor, lands commissioner and schools chief — but his second idea, a codification commission, is the reason the Revised Code of Washington exists at all. The argument he opened, over how much power should sit in the governor's office versus the ballot, resurfaces every time a governor reaches for emergency authority. And the complaint that no officeholder knows the full extent of his own duties has never quite gone away.
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