The present weakness.
The Need of Reform in State Administration.—There are two distinct weaknesses in state administration at the present day. One results from the fact that the functions of the state have been enormously expanded during the past fifty years while the administrative machinery has not kept pace. The state has taken over new duties in the field of public health, the regulation of industry, the administration of prisons, the control of public utilities, and many other matters. In each case it has merely set up one more department or bureau or board until the whole organization has become top-heavy. State administration, in other words, is now divided into too many compartments. The other weakness arises from the fact that these various departments are not all responsible to the governor or to any central head. Some officials and boards are appointed; some are elected. Some hold office for long terms, some for short. The governor bears the responsibility for the proper conduct of state administration, yet the work is done by officials who are not required to obey his instructions.[[104]] He is like a general who is expected to win battles without having officers who will obey his commands. The result is not only a good deal of friction but a waste of time, money, and patience. Several states have felt the need of reforming this condition and have proceeded to make changes in their administrative organization. These changes involve a reduction in the number of departments and the placing of them all under the general control of the governor.[[105]] In the national administration all departments are responsible to the President. The same principle ought to be applied in state administration.
Can the system of commission government be applied to the states?
The Proposed Reconstruction of State Government.—The system of state government, as it now stands, is not obtaining satisfactory results. The state legislatures have declined in popular confidence during the past generation; men of inferior quality are frequently elected to them; the work of lawmaking is influenced too much by party considerations; the administrative departments are too numerous in most of the states and often fail to do their work efficiently. State taxes are everywhere going up rapidly and state debts are increasing. Various plans for a radical reconstruction in state government have been proposed in order to remedy these defects. One proposal is that the two-chambered legislature should be abolished and a single small body of representatives put in its place. It is argued that if fewer legislators were elected better men would be chosen and that the process of lawmaking would thereby be improved. Some have even gone so far as to urge that we should establish commission government for states as well as for cities. State government, they argue, has become so complicated that it now needs a smaller number of capable men giving their undivided attention to it. A two-chambered legislature, which meets for a few months every second year, cannot handle the business effectively. Nevertheless the people have become thoroughly accustomed to double-chambered legislatures, and where the proposal to establish a single chamber has been submitted to them (as in Oregon) they have rejected it.
Should the governor’s powers be increased?
Another plan proposes the vesting of larger powers in the hands of the governor, giving him the initiative in financial matters and making all the state administrative departments responsible to him. Today the drift is very strongly in this direction. Already, in some states, the governor is a more important factor than the legislature, and this is strangely in contrast with the situation as it was a hundred years or more ago. James Madison, in his time, spoke of the governors as “little more than ciphers” and declared that the legislatures were omnipotent. In our day this has entirely changed, or is changing. The balance of power is steadily swinging from the legislative to the executive branch.
General References
C. A. Beard, American Government and Politics, pp. 428-577; Ibid., Readings in American Government and Politics, pp. 391-508;
Everett Kimball, State and Municipal Government, pp. 131-308;