Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Discussion Subjects:

State supervision of local expenditures; the responsibility of local units for increasing taxes; executive duties and powers; administrative reorganization; veto and extradition; land utilization and planning; and public utilities

Points of Interest:

The Governors spent considerable time discussing state responsibility over local expenditures, particularly in the light of evidence of local government inefficiency. It was observed that while states levied a minority of state and local taxes, it was from state constitutions and statutes that local government derived its authority. Governors therefore talked about what steps could and should be taken to supervise local affairs. One of the options discussed was already law in Indiana, where local budgets and bond issues were subject to review by the state on the appeal of ten or more taxpayers in a local jurisdiction.

Governors discussed the fact that while the federal government had assumed control over a wide variety of services that were involved in interstate commerce--including railroads, telephones, and planes--it had not taken regulatory control over electrical power, despite the fact that states had no control over power's interstate transmission.

Pursuant to the previous year's resolution to plan for the possible establishment of a permanent research and fact-finding arm for the Governors' Conference, Governor George Dern of Utah--serving as a committee of one--had developed both a plan and a budget for such a "Secretariat" and had surveyed all Governors as to their interest in the idea. He reported back that the response had been unenthusiastic and moved that the plan be abandoned. Gov. Dern's motion, seconded by Governor Henry Caulfield of Missouri, carried with no roll call taken.

Memorable Quotes:

Governor George Dern of Utah said: "...new State activities which are created in response to a public demand, and which increase the taxes, don't necessarily mean that the taxpayer's expenses are increased...it simply means he is transferring a part of his expenses from his ordinary personal expenses to his tax account. If we didn't have a public health service I have no doubt we should all pay bigger doctor bills, for example...anything that can be done more economically and more efficiently by cooperative enterprise than by the individual alone is a legitimate State function."

Referring to the long ballot, in which a wide variety of executive branch officials in state government were elected rather than appointed by the Governor, Gov. Dern said: "...I have known several instances of Governors who were afraid to leave their States to attend the Governors' Conference because they did not dare to trust the Lieutenant Governor...Why should it be considered more democratic to vote for half a dozen candidates, five of whom the average voter does not know, than to vote for one whom the voter does know?"

With respect to what federal issues were or were not appropriate for Governors to address, Gov. Dern said: "I don't see any particular need of discussing a subject that is peculiarly in the province of Congress, but I think it is proper for this body to discuss the effect that national legislative measures might have upon the rights of the States."

Regarding the Depression, then-Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York said: "More and more, those who are the victims of dislocations and defects of our social and economic life are beginning to ask respectfully but insistently of us who are in positions of public responsibility why Government cannot and should not act to protect its citizens from disaster. I believe the question demands an answer and that the ultimate answer is that government, both State and National, must accept the responsibility of doing what it can do...along definitely constructive, not passive, lines...[e.g.] as a scientific tariff aimed primarily to create a movement of world commodities from one nation to another...as a better thought-out taxation system...as a survey and plan to cut the excessive cost of local government...as the extension of the principle of insurance to ...fields of sickness and of unemployment which are not now reached...as the problem of a dislocation of a proper balance between urban and rural life."

Resolution Adopted:
Abandoning the idea of establishing a research arm for the Governors' Conference.