Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

state government:

How relevant is lieutenant governor’s office with its primary function dissolved?

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Brian Krolicki

Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki banged the gavel down on the plastic card table last week, ending the state’s Nevada Commission on Economic Development.

“It feels like a wake,” he said.

Not only was it the death of the agency that had tried, sometimes fitfully, to diversify the state’s economy and attract business, but it also meant the end of the prime responsibility lieutenant governors have listed on their resumes for the past three decades — leaving the status of the No. 2 elected position in the state in a kind of limbo.

After Bob Cashell, now Reno’s mayor, became lieutenant governor in 1983, he said he was so bored that he wanted the office abolished. Instead, then-Gov. Richard Bryan put the lieutenant governor in charge of economic development.

But as the recession continues to ravage Nevada’s economy, Gov. Brian Sandoval yanked that responsibility back to the governor’s office.

So, it’s only natural to ask now: What’s the point of having a lieutenant governor — the only part-time constitutional officer, who makes $60,000 a year.

The cynical answer: The lieutenant governor now exists simply to stand ready to take over in case something happens to the governor.

And that may prove the only draw for prospective candidates nowadays, especially with Sandoval’s potential for higher office.

In political circles, Sandoval’s future is uncertain. Sandoval says he’ll run for re-election in 2014. But Sen. Harry Reid’s U.S. Senate seat is up in 2016, and Sandoval is seen as a prime candidate for that office. In the nearer future, if Republican Mitt Romney is elected president, Sandoval could potentially be appointed to a federal cabinet-level position.

That makes the office of lieutenant governor attractive to political up-and-comers.

Possible successors to Krolicki, who can’t run again because of term limits, include Heidi Gansert, Sandoval’s chief of staff, and Steve Hill, Sandoval’s executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Controller Kim Wallin, a Democrat who is term limited in 2014, is also considering a run for the office.

Krolicki and some of the recent lieutenant governors defended the relevancy of the job.

The lieutenant governor still sits on the board of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. He still chairs the state’s Commission on Tourism, which focuses on rural Nevada. And as president of the state Senate when the Legislature is in session, he runs the floor sessions and takes the very rare tie-breaking vote.

“The office is what you put into it,” Krolicki said.

He has made attracting the Winter Olympics to the Reno-Tahoe region a centerpiece of his job. Krollicki said he is still intimately involved with economic diversification and notes he sits in on Sandoval’s cabinet meetings, as he did under former Gov. Jim Gibbons.

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Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki and Gov. Brian Sandoval get information on the wildlife at Valley of Fire State Park from park supervisor Jim Hammons.

“I expect to be, if not the same, then more engaged in matters of economic development and diversity going forward,” he said. “It might be defined as a part-time job, but it keeps me plenty busy.”

Krolicki also does consulting for the health care industry and an international trade company.

Former Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, who served from 1999 to 2006, bristles at the media’s occasional portrayal of the job as useless.

“As lieutenant governor, you had to be prepared to take over in case the governor can’t serve,” she said.

She noted the role the lieutenant governor played in economic development and still plays with a vote on the board.

“I’ve seen so many people say it’s a do-nothing job, a do-nothing position,” she said. “That’s so wrong. They don’t understand the breadth and width of the office.”

Former Gov. Bob Miller was the last lieutenant governor to be appointed governor, succeeding Bryan when he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1988.

Miller said “elements of the job were interesting,” including economic development. But he acknowledged that when he served as No. 2, there was the anticipation Bryan would soon be in the U.S Senate.

As governor, Miller had a front-row seat to the most interesting lieutenant governor in recent history.

Not content to simply wait around for a chance to be appointed to the state’s top job, Lonnie Hammargren would take opportunities when Miller went out of state — and when, per the constitution, the duties of the governor fall to the lieutenant governor — to make appointments to state boards and a county commission.

“It was a challenge, at times,” Miller said.

Hammargren, a brain surgeon and lieutenant governor from 1995 to 1998, called it “not that great a job.”

He said it’s hard to assess the impact as head of economic development.

“Look at how little change had been made — tourism was, is and will be our predominant industry,” he said.

Hammargren lost a run for governor but then ran again unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006.

He was almost reluctant to admit he campaigned for the job again, saying of his decision to seek a second term: “I’m not even sure why.”

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