Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

Strengthening the power of the executive; workers compensation; the right of states to fix intra-state traffic rates; state control of public utilities; prison labor; inheritance tax and state comity; and women's suffrage and child labor

Points of Interest:

There was lively discussion of the degree to which the power of state chief executives was--and/or should be--limited. Governor Emmett O'Neal of Alabama noted that limits on gubernatorial power originated in the people's mistrust of colonial governors, and he said that restrictions on Governors had been exacerbated by empowering the electorate to select [via the long ballot] subordinate state executive agents. Governors who felt that gubernatorial power was sufficient argued that increases in power had the potential to subvert the will of the people. Those with the opposite view believed that state legislators were failing to act on the wishes of their constituents.

Memorable Quotes:

Governor Edwin Norris of Montana said: "The fact that a Governor is judged by what he is able to do rather than by what he desires and has faithfully tried to do is an argument in favor of giving to the Governor the means whereby he can have submitted to the voters of his State the legislation which he deems to be advisable...In many states the voters have in large measure lost confidence in the efficiency of Legislative Assemblies, and the initiative and referendum methods have been invoked as a means to secure laws that the Legislatures would not enact...[A]s companion...of these methods the power of the executive should be strengthened by giving him the right to present bills for the consideration of the Legislative Assembly. If the bills were not passed...he would have the right to submit [them] direct to the voters at the next election...There would then be placed upon the Governors the direct responsibility to carry out the pledges made to the people in the platform upon which he was elected."

Governor Emmett O'Neal of Alabama, referring to judicial recall, said "I am informed that in some states the system of recall applies to all officials, including the governor...[officials may be] removed from office at the arbitrary caprice of a majority..." And Governor John Burke of North Dakota said, with respect to women's suffrage: "...the first thing we will know in these days is that women will unite in a general declaration of independence, and then I guess we will capitulate. But I am in favor of the women; they are undoubtedly on the right side of the question."

Resolutions:
Governors took their first official action as a group, adopting a motion for the appointment of a committee of three Governors to represent the Governors' Conference in a case pending before the Supreme Court in which the federal government was challenging the effect of intrastate railroad regulations on interstate rates.