Weekly Opinion Editorial
COLLABORATION, NOT CONSOLIDATION!
by Steve Fair
On Wednesday, Governor
Kevin Stitt signed three House and two Senate bills that gave him the power to
hire and agency directors at five of the largest state agencies: the Department
of Corrections, the Oklahoma Healthcare Authority, the Department of
Transportation, the Office of Juvenile Affairs, and the Department of Mental
Health. The five bills had emergency
provisions, so they go into effect immediately.
Before the bills were passed
and signed into law, the five agencies were guided by individual boards and
commissions. Stitt pledged during his
campaign that he would push for the governor to have more power in the hiring
of agency heads, saying the board system insulated agency heads from voters. “Oklahomans
want three things: they want accountability, transparency and they want
results,” Stitt said at the signing ceremony while flanked by seventy
lawmakers.
First, empowering the governor to hire and fire top agency directors will
clearly be more efficient than the old method. It theoretically does make the larger state agency
heads more accountable to voters. Under
the new system the only person between them and the voter will now be the
governor. However, that begs two
questions: “why have a board at all if it has no say in the agency’s staffing and
budgeting? Is the board just an
advisory body with no real power? Under
the old system, each agency had boards of varying size, all with members
appointed by the governor to a term. A
new governor couldn’t just fire the board and start over. They had to work with the existing board,
many times with those who had been appointed by their predecessors, to make
changes in state agencies. Many of the
appointments were political patronage and the board members were not qualified
to be there. Under the new system, the
boards will be made up of people who have little power and no authority over
the agency they are supposed to be overseeing.
Second, this consolidation of power should be voted on by the citizens
of Oklahoma. If granting the
governor more power is a good thing, then amend the State Constitution to
permanently grant that power. That must
be done through a vote of the people.
The five bills signed this week can be rescinded by a future
legislature. A Republican legislator recently
said that would be what would happen if a Democrat governor was elected. But expanding the power of the governor can’t
be personality or Party driven. It is
either the right or wrong thing to do.
Third,
government conducts business, but it is not a business. It doesn’t generate revenue- it collects
it. Government should be conducted in a
businesslike manner, but a business is only accountable to its stakeholders,
not to society as a whole. It is an oligarchy. Government is accountable to everyone in its jurisdiction. It’s important to understand the difference.
Consolidation
of power was something America’s founders warned against. They set up a system of government that relies
on a multitude of counselors, not single personalities or elected leaders. Clearly, the most effective, efficient form
of government is a benevolent dictatorship, but that only works until the good dictator
is gone. Oklahomans need a fourth thing
Governor- Collaboration- to really turnaround.
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