Tinkering With the Constitution : Enthusiastic Wilson supporters go one step too far with amendment

Gov. Pete Wilson’s announcement Thursday that he will form a presidential exploratory committee certainly reinforces the impression that he has a big itch to run. But while a formal announcement isn’t expected for at least a few weeks, his supporters have been pushing the idea of amending the state Constitution to make it more comfortable for him to run. A proposed amendment would make it impossible for Lt. Gov. Gray Davis to succeed to Wilson’s job if Wilson moved on to Washington. Such an idea is a mistake.

The proposal is being advanced solely to prevent the governor’s chair from going to a Democrat. The proposed constitutional amendment would require a special election to fill any gubernatorial vacancy. All voters--Democrats, Republicans, whatever--should be concerned over the idea of amending the Constitution merely for partisan purposes.

The way the California system works now is that the lieutenant governor, like the vice president of the United States, succeeds to the top job if for any reason the No. 1 leaves office. But in California, unlike under the federal tradition of a party ticket, the governor sometimes is from one political party and the lieutenant governor from another. The voters elect them separately. That’s why GOP supporters of Wilson would like to change the Constitution by 1996, when a statewide election for governor could be held to keep Davis out of the top job. Worse yet, a second GOP proposal would simply abolish the office of lieutenant governor entirely and allow the attorney general to succeed the governor (not too surprisingly, the current occupant of that post is, unlike Davis, a Republican).

All of this is thoroughly understandable as good old-fashioned partisan politics, but it’s politically motivated tinkering with California’s already nearly 1tinkered-to-death Constitution. And, in the case of Davis, it disenfranchises the voters who in November elected him to the No. 2 spot for a four-year term.

A better governmental reform--if indeed one is even needed--would amend the Constitution to require both offices to be conjoined on one ticket. That wouldn’t affect the current Wilson/Davis situation, but it would avoid such future problems. The whole point of a Constitution is to embed government structures and procedures in such a firm foundation that government can’t be easily tilted by political winds of the moment.