About being Virginia's Lieutenant Governor

A primary approaches.

Earlier this week, Patrick Herrity dropped out of the June 17 primary for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor and it’s too bad. The son of Jack Herrity had not fallen far from the tree and that alone promised to make his race both fun and useful.

About his old man: Born in Arlington, Jack Herrity opened his political career by winning a spot on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 1971. Five years later, he was elected chairman and remained so for the next 12 years.

Herrity favored economic growth in the 1970s and 80s when “growth” invariably inspired a protracted fight. Herrity stayed the course, and in the process, earned lasting respect.

It earned him growing opposition, too. In 1987, the slow-growth forces in Fairfax handily defeated him, though his legacy remains undiminished.

Son Patrick likewise embraced a “let’s-get-things-done” mentality. His business background stood him out in a part of the state now celebrated for its ideological blather. You didn’t always have to agree with Pat Herrity to see that his knowledge of local government would have benefited him in state office.

Putting the pieces together (state & local) and achieving some semblance of a constructive outcome is, in fact, the larger challenge facing Virginia and will long remain so. It helps to know the history and the mechanics of Virginia governance. The Pat Herrity’s of the world do.

Would Pat Herrity have been happy as lieutenant governor?

Likely, no. You could tell that from his website’s introductory video, where he announced that “as your lieutenant governor, I will lower taxes, protect our communities and take back our schools.”

None of those things lie within the purview and authority of the Virginia lieutenant governor’s office and, had he been elected, doubtless Pat Herrity would have said, “Darn, someone should have told me.”

In Virginia, the governor and attorney general are the only full-time statewide elected officials. The lieutenant governor presides over the Virginia Senate and breaks voting ties. Mastering parliamentary procedure and the Rules of the Senate will be helpful, but the Senate Clerk provides a backstop for that.

Is that all there is, my friends? John Dalton, who filled the role from 1974 to 1978, thought it insufferably insufficient and dispatched a memo to the State Government Management Commission (chaired by Roanoke state Senator William B. Hopkins) and urged a reconfiguration, so that the lieutenant governor would serve as a full-time member of the executive branch with specific administrative duties and responsibilities.

Richmond state Sen. Ed Willy, a member of the commission, said he’d seen the memo and “didn’t think enough of it to send it out. I think we have the office to provide for succession to the governorship if needed.”

And so it remains.

It’s worth noting, however, that in the 1970s the political thinking on Virginia’s no. 2 elected position was influenced by Dalton’s predecessor in the office, Henry Howell. He had dramatized Virginia’s reality, that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, even when members of the same party, stand for office independently. Collaboration is neither automatic nor obligatory.

This certainly had meaning when Jerry Baliles sat in the Governor’s Office in the 1980s while Doug Wilder occupied the other job. The relationship was marked by cordiality and constant attentiveness – both of which were obligatory, as I think back upon it.

Herrity’s withdrawal as a candidate for lieutenant governor gives the GOP nomination to Richmond talk show host John Reid and we’ll see how that goes. You get the feeling that Democrats are smacking their lips at the potential lurking in Reid’s radio bombast.

Two problems with that: (1) You have to listen to it all; and, (2) Reid will likely have a ready answer for any of it. Talk radio teaches you to dance quick and that could help Reid through the minefield.

The Democrats have six candidates for this position and there’s a sleeper in there, in my opinion. His name is Dr. Babur B. Lateef, the current chairman-at-large of the Prince William County School Board. He’s handled that work for more than five years and, against the law of averages, appears to have both survived and thrived.

Dr. Lateef has done this while also chairing the University of Virginia Health System Board and serving on UVA’s Board of Visitors. Do the work right and those positions become two heavy-duty assignments. Interestingly, I have yet to find anyone who doesn’t like and admire this man. How does that happen?

But what really caught my eye is the video Lateef planted on his campaign website. He walks into an empty school board hearing room and then the place begins to fill, with one citizen after another approaching the microphone to express themselves as they see fit.

Democracy. Citizens. Free expression. Opinions. Dr. Lateef has spent quality time at the receiving end of the Republic and likely has plenty of insights to show for it. There’s lots of raw material there for him to make a statewide impression on the subject of public education and democracy both.

As I examined Dr. Lateef’s record, I began to realize that we probably disagree on a few things. But, these days, political “agreement” is not what it’s cracked up to be.

What I mean by that is there’s got to be a way to look at a Patrick Herrity and a Barbur Lateef, take measure of what they think, while also considering what they’ve learned and experienced and how they’ve handled themselves and impressed others.

Because out of that mental exercise emerges some appreciation of a candidate’s character and integrity.

Not that anyone, in this setting, has a whole lot of time to make these evaluations. The June 17 primaries fast approach. With the nominations for governor uncontested, who’s likely to vote anyway? No one knows.

Then, again, there’s the job of lieutenant governor itself and what you can make of it. Anyone winning the post has to wrestle with that challenge and I watched that happen in real-time in early 1978, as Virginia’s newly elected Lt. Gov. Chuck Robb mulled it over.

He had help in the person of Stewart Gamage, his executive assistant. For a brief period, I helped with Robb’s extensive speaking schedule and just recently came across some files stuffed with Stewart’s perceptive handiwork.

“What role can the Lieutenant Governor’s Office play?” Gamage asked in a memo. “Call public attention to the problems/potential? Serve as a liaison between parties? Solicit private input or attract private resources? Work with the legislature or state agencies in changing, modifying, or reaffirming state policies or programs?”

Conclusion: If you’re lieutenant governor and wish to be productive, you better get creative.