State Sen. Sam Givhan (R-Huntsville) joined Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show" this week to discuss his recently introduced amendment expediting the process of identifying a new lieutenant governor if the office becomes vacant.
According to Givhan, state law provides guidelines if the offices of governor and lieutenant governor become open at the same time. However, no current law exists to fill the lieutenant governor's position should they be removed from office, die, resign or replace the governor.
"If both the governor's office and the Lieutenant Governor's office are vacant, then the pro tem of the Senate becomes acting governor and then presiding officer of the Senate, and is still pro tem," Givhan explained of the current law. "I started looking at that, and I go, "Well, that's just impossible."
"Now he can have somebody else sitting in the chair, but there are certain things the pro tem has to do," continued Givhan. "There are certain things because it's vacant that the lieutenant governor can't do because the pro tem does not have the authority. Some of the provisions have been changed to say the presiding officer. That way, if the lieutenant governor's there, then it's the lieutenant governor, if not, then it's the pro tem. If that happens in the first two years of a quadranium then there is a special election at the same time that there's a presidential election. As long as that vacancy occurs 60 days before then."
Givhan argued that if the law is not changed, the lieutenant governor's office could be vacant for 4 years.
"There is no provision for filling only the lieutenant governor. So day one, the governor dies or the Lieutenant Governor dies, then the Lieutenant Governor's office is vacant for four years," Givhan noted. "And all I'm saying is, 'Hey, we already have a procedure set up if something happens, which it never has or at least it hasn't since the 1900s. Let's go ahead and have a special election."
The lawmaker spoke about the concerns of the current pro tem, State Sen. Garland Gudger (R-Cullman), and two of his predecessors regarding the possibility of elevating the office to Lt. governor in the event of a vacancy.
"The last three, the current Pro Tem and the previous two pro tems, at least, did not want that. I can get it," Givhan acknowledged. "There could be a situation where they are basically placed in a statewide office. Then maybe they don't want to run or don't feel they're capable of running statewide, or can't win, and all of a sudden, their Senate seat is filled because there's a special election for the vacancy. So they don't want that. Then I thought we could just elect amongst the senators a new Pro Tem. Well, the thought was, the people aren't really going to like that. Just 35 people making an election decision on who's going to be lieutenant governor, a constitutional office."
Givhan claimed the amendment, which passed the Senate on Thursday, addresses a separation-of-powers issue.
"Of course, the lieutenant governor would say, I'm taking away a lot of authority now with my bills. There are just a lot of things. For a house, corollary, the speaker makes the appointment, or the speaker resolves whatever the situation is. But in the Senate, so many times, it's the Lieutenant Governor. The Lieutenant Governor is not part of the legislature. He is the executive."
He added, "Why did the Senate ever give up the authority to control itself? It's beyond me. But it's not going to be overturned overnight."
"I'm just going to chip away at it and try to get these things lined up over time," Givhan concluded.
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