Ours is the only state with only one elected statewide office

Since Paul LePage’s narrow win in the governor’s race over Eliot Cutler, there have been numerous suggestions about how to ensure that the winner of Maine’s highest office receives more than 38 percent of the vote – not much more than a third. That’s a dubious distinction LePage shares with Angus King, in his first election as governor, and John Baldacci, in his second.

Cutler himself suggested a runoff election between the two top finishers, but runoffs have a much lower turnout. Others like a “ranked choice” system, in which voters express a series of preferences. Ranked choice will be tested when Portland elects its first mayor citywide, but its chance of being adopted statewide seems slight.

Perhaps we are focused on the wrong problem. Governors and presidents can be elected without a popular majority and still become successful executives. The real problem is a lack of enthusiasm for the choices we get.

That was true this year. A week before the election, pollsters tabbed a quarter of the electorate as “undecided.” It’s doubtful so many people were really undecided. They couldn’t make up their minds because they didn’t believe any candidate deserved their vote.

Maine has a quixotic system for electing governors, and that’s primarily because there’s only one statewide office. Most candidates are drawn from among state senators, business owners, and – sometimes – one of Maine’s two U.S. House members; U.S. senators never return to run.

Meaning no disrespect to Eliot Cutler, but the leading independent candidate had never been elected to any office. Republican Paul LePage was mayor of a city of 16,000 people, while Democrat Libby Mitchell’s legislative districts never had more than 35,000.

The vast majority of states elect their attorney general. Most also elect a treasurer, and many elect the secretary of state. Most have lieutenant governors. In Vermont, all these offices are elective, and no one becomes governor without serving in another statewide post.

It may be unfair to say categorically that Vermont’s governors are more qualified than Maine’s, but their training is superior.

So why doesn’t Maine have any other statewide officers? We’ve never changed the constitution to require it.

Legislators choose the AG, the secretary of state and the treasurer. Traditionally, former House members fill most of these posts, and many have been capable.

But that’s not the point. The voters have no say, and hence the constitutional officers, as they’re known, have no cachet with voters looking for a governor.

Maine is the only state that does this, and being unique is in this case no virtue.

The barriers to changing the state constitution are high – two-thirds of both houses, plus a majority of the voters. This high wall is why reformers in the 1990s chose term limits for legislators as their target – because it could be done by referendum. The claim was dubious, but the state Supreme Judicial Court agreed, and that was that.

No one’s made a compelling case that legislative term limits have improved state government, particularly when their presumed target, former House Speaker John Martin, still serves by rotating between House and Senate.

It’s time to stop focusing on what’s easy, and think about what would do some good. Electing the AG, secretary of state, and treasurer would improve state government’s accountability and – crucially – provide a testing ground for future governors.

So how do we do it? Introducing bills with that narrow focus won’t work. Today’s Republicans, choosing their first constitutional officers in 38 years, will be no more eager to change the system than Democrats were before.

But there is an alternative. We can broaden the debate by having a constitutional convention – something the Legislature might approve. No one has even discussed such a “Con Con” since the late 1970s, when the reformist urges that abolished the executive council, created a strong governor, and provided cabinet-style government began to wane.

But with continuing voter discontent, which makes all legislators nervous, they’d be more likely to approve a convention than to simply prevent themselves from choosing constitutional officers. Virtually everyone believes state government could work a lot better. Why not start with a wide-ranging discussion of how to improve it?

A convention would focus on much more than election of officers. We could make sense of the tangled relationships between state, county and municipal government, change the size of the Legislature, and provide some real oversight of state agencies.

A convention is something the tea party and the Green Party would welcome and – with sufficient persuasion, Republicans and Democrats too.

The present system isn’t working well. We should try to fix it.

Douglas Rooks is a former daily and weekly newspaper editor who has covered the State House for 25 years. He can be reached at [email protected].