The Portland daily press., 1880-01-09
AN INTERESTING QUESTION
Is the President of the Senate
Governor.
An Arg amont To STOW That He
Is Not.

AUGUSTA, Jan. S.-The following communi-
cation will appear in the Kennebec journal
tomorrow on the question whether the Presi
dent OF the Senate can ill the office of Cover
nor:
Admitting for the sake of argument, that
Mr.. Lamson is regularly President Of the Sem
ate, the question arises can he act as Governor
until the Executive chair has been regularly
filed? l answer unhesitatingly no, he cannot
The language of the Constitution of Maine is
s.Whenever the Office of Governor shall become
vacant by death, resignation, removal from Office
otherwise the President of the Senate shall exercise
the Office of Governor until another Governor shall
be duly qualified and in of death, resignation
removal from office or other disqualification of the
President of the Senate exercising the office of
Governor, the Speaker of the House OF Representa-
tives shall exercise the Office until the President of
the Senate shall have been chosen, and when the
office of Governor, President of the Senate and
Speaker of the House shall become vacant in re-
of the Senate the person acting as Secretary Of
State for the time being shall by proclamation
vene the Senate that a President may be chosen to
exercise the office of Governors and whenever either
President Of the Senate or Speaker of the House
sh exercise said office he shall receive only the
compensation of Governor, but his duties as Presi-
dent Speaker shall be suspended, and the Senate
or House shall fill the vacancy until his duties as
Governor shall cease.
Even to the casual reader it is evident that
the Office of Governor must first be filed before
it can ''become vacant" Under every consti-
tuition distinction is recognized between an
original vacancy and office that becomes va
can't The oife of Governor is each year an
original vacancy, each year the incumbent of
the office starting as fresh and new as William
King did in 1920. No one would pretend that
in ting original organization of the government
of Maine if the Legislature had ballotted for
few days in choosing Governor the office had
thereby became vacant. Why, it never was
filled, You might as well speak of a jar be-
coming empty that never had anything in
it," The Constitution does not say that "the
office of Governor being vacant the President
of the Senate shall exercise the office, but
whenever the the office "shall become va
can't and that repeat is an impossibility I'M
| til it has been filed
Nor does our constitution use the language
of the Feneral constitution in regard to Sena-
toral vacancies where it speaks OF the office
happening to be vacant. This very distinction
was pointed out III an elaborate discussion on
the Bell case in the United States Senate
Moreover there is no instance in sixty years of
anv such claim to he Maine governorship be-
ingset up and maintained. Once it was at
| tempted and ended in good laugh and some
| COOL humored ridiGule at the expense OF a
very worthy gentleman since deceased. AT the
| Close Of Gov. Fairfeld's term there was q
hiatus of several days, but the president of the
| SeIate never attempted to exercise the duty
| OF the Governor. There was four weeks
! vacancy in 1874 at the close of Gov. Crosby'S
not perform single executive act. Still
further if the president of the Senate could ex-
ercse the duties of Governor before the office
had been filed there would be q constant and
sometimes irresistible temptation when consti-
tutpnal candidates were sent to the Senate for
thai body to neglect their duty in choosing one
and thus leave their own president acting
governor of the state.
last year the Republicans had the Senate
by two-thirds majority and the Republican
Senator's had very unwelcome choice pre-
senied to them in the names of Alonzo Garce-
lon and Joseph l.. Smith. Can it be argued
thai they might have neglected to choose be-
tween Smith and Garcelon and thus have
made their President, Mr. Haynes, the acting
governor? If you give a sweeping unlimited
Specification back as well as forward to the
VOID otherwise" then Mr.. Haynes might
really have been made governor. AssureGly
the trainers OF the Constitution never intend
ed 70 confer such power Of creating vacan-
cy III the office of governor and reposing that
power in the very branch that would have q
strong temptation to use it whenever the po-
litieal complexion Of the two branches might
be different. From these and other reasons
that might be adduced conclude that the of
fee of governor has not become vacant and
! that Mr.. Lamson cannot exercise its duties.