Lieutenant Governor

The lieutenant governor of a state is roughly the equivalent of the U.S. vice president. His or her most important duty is to be prepared to take over as chief executive should the governorship become vacant.

As the “standby” governor, the lieutenant governor has been the butt of jokes about the job's lack of substance. “I'm the lieutenant governor,” Calvin Coolidge once told a Massachusetts woman who asked his occupation. When she excitedly asked him to tell her all about it, Coolidge replied, “I just did.”

But the job in most states today is more rewarding and challenging than it was in Coolidge's day. States have added to the lieutenant governor's duties and responsibilities, just as modern presidents have found more meaningful tasks for their vice presidents than flying to funerals of foreign dignitaries. In many states, governors are empowered to assign executive tasks to the lieutenant governor.

In contrast to the past when lieutenant governor was a part-time job in the legislative branch, it is now a full-time job in most of the states that have the position. Twelve states have placed the lieutenant governor entirely in the executive branch. Like the vice president, who is president of the U.S. Senate, the lieutenant governor in most states presides over the state senate and votes only to break a tie.

Yet despite these increased responsibilities in many states, the lieutenant governor often is consigned to a relatively low-profile role. So while some lieutenant governors have later moved up to the governor's office, they are in the minority. Only a special few start their gubernatorial bids with “heir apparent” status.

For example, there were thirty-eight races for governor in 2006. The winners in only four of the races were former lieutenant governors, and three of them—Republicans M. Jodi Rell of [Page 308]Connecticut, Dave Heineman of Nebraska, and Rick Perry of Texas—had filled vacancies in the governor's office prior to their first gubernatorial contests. The other former lieutenant governor to win a 2006 race for governor, Idaho Republican C. L. “Butch” Otter, served six years in the U.S. House between his tenure in the lower office and his election to the higher office.

C. L. “Butch” Otter, the Republican governor of Idaho, was one of only four former lieutenant governors elected in 2006, when thirty-eight gubernatorial races were held.Source: CQ Photo/Scott J. Ferrell

The four major-party nominees who sought to move up directly from lieutenant governor—Republican Kerry Healey of Massachusetts and Democrats Lucy Baxley of Alabama, Mark Taylor of Georgia, and Charlie Fogarty of Rhode Island—all were defeated. Each of the three Democrats who lost were from split-ticket states and lost to the incumbent Republican governors: Bob Riley in Alabama, Sonny Perdue in Georgia, and Donald Carcieri in Rhode Island.

As of mid-2011, forty-three states had an office of lieutenant governor, who in each case was the next in line should a vacancy occur in the governor's office. In twenty-four states, the governor and lieutenant governor are elected on a party ticket. In the other eighteen, though, the governor and lieutenant governor run separately, making it possible for a governor of one party and a lieutenant governor of another party to serve together. In addition, other states had the equivalent of a lieutenant governor. In Arizona, Oregon, and Wyoming, the secretary of state serves the function. In Maine, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and West Virginia, the president of the senate does.

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