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In his new memoir, Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania shows little love for his current job, but he’s even more dismissive of his previous gig: serving as lieutenant governor. It was, he writes, “the easiest job in all of America, with few mandated duties.” Yet despite the minimal requirements—or perhaps because of them—the nation’s lieutenant governorships have seemed to produce an inordinate number of recent scandals. Power corrupts, but idle hands may be even more dangerous.
Micah Beckwith, the lieutenant governor of Indiana, is currently being investigated by a grand jury. The probe focuses on payroll fraud allegations as well as claims that a Beckwith staffer distributed a deepfake porn video depicting the wife of a state legislator. (The lieutenant governor has denied any wrongdoing.) Beckwith is also a pastor; the church where he works is in the middle of a serious sex scandal, though he is not accused of misconduct there. He also reportedly received a written reprimand from state-senate leadership for his social-media posts and for wearing AI glasses on the senate floor.
In Virginia, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, John Reid, lost his race this month after a campaign tarred by the discovery of alleged links to a pornographic blog. Reid, who is openly gay, denied that the blog was his and insinuated that attacks on him were homophobic. More problematic, and harder to dismiss, were the reported racial slurs and Nazi fetishism involved.
Don’t confuse Reid with Mark Robinson, the former lieutenant governor in next-door North Carolina, who lost his bid for the governorship after the discovery of his alleged online accounts, in which he reportedly called himself a “black Nazi” and expressed his appreciation for transgender porn despite his anti-woke political stances. (Robinson denied that the accounts were his.) Nor should you confuse Reid with Justin Fairfax, a Democrat who served as Virginia’s lieutenant governor and whose career was all but ended by sexual-assault allegations against him in 2019. (He has denied wrongdoing.)
Lieutenant governors exist mostly to step in should something happen to the governor. Denny Heck, the lieutenant governor of Washington State, told me he keeps a succession guide in his desk drawer. “I take it out once in a while, and I look at it—a go bag, actually a file folder. What happens? What do you do in what sequence?” he said. “Even though it doesn’t happen ordinarily, it happens frequently enough that I think it’s really valuable not to have to reinvent that every time it occurs.”
A clean line of succession is a good thing, but the problem is that many lieutenant governors don’t have much to do besides wait around for the worst-case scenario. Some are assigned to sit on or chair various boards (which doesn’t mean they show up). Louisiana’s Billy Nungesser serves—with obvious relish—as a sort of state-tourism czar. One common task is to preside over the state Senate. But given the risk of putting ambitious politicians in a high-profile job with lots of free time, the conservative operative Eli Lehrer has argued that states could save money by eliminating them altogether; even staid Governing magazine snarkily wrote that “Lieutenant Governor Is (Sometimes) a Real Job.” The candidates vying for this office also don’t always get the same scrutiny as candidates for governor, which might account for some of the scandals.
Having a lieutenant governor isn’t the only way to establish a line of succession, and only 45 states have them, though that number will be 46 once Arizona elects its first lieutenant governor next year, on a joint ticket with the governor. The state added the position in part because the old plan—elevating the secretary of state—twice shifted the political party in charge. New Jersey created a post because its old system, elevating the state-senate president, produced a new governor not elected by voters statewide.
Electing governors and lieutenant governors separately can create challenges. Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, reportedly bowed out of consideration to run for vice president in 2024 in part because he didn’t want campaign travel to create chances for Robinson to serve as acting governor. But even when one party holds both seats, tensions can result. Current California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, hated serving as No. 2 to Governor Jerry Brown, who refused to give him any duties. In May 2021, GOP Governor Brad Little left Idaho on official business and Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin issued an executive order banning local mask mandates. Little returned and rescinded the order; McGeachin unsuccessfully challenged him for governor a year later.
Some lieutenant governors find more positive ways to use the role. Heck, who previously had a long career as both a state legislator and U.S. representative, told me he finds presiding over the state Senate especially rewarding. “My experience in Congress—I was frankly discouraged at the decline in civil discourse, and there’s no better position to set a tone of respectful discourse than when you’re the presiding officer,” he said.
Even so, Heck, 73, is a bit of an accidental lieutenant governor. He had already decided to retire from the U.S. House and ran for the job only when the incumbent lieutenant governor stepped down. Cyrus Habib, a fellow Democrat, was a 30-something with a promising career whom some viewed as a future governor. Instead, he decided to quit politics and become a Jesuit priest. Perhaps it says something about the lieutenant governorship that an ambitious rising star would decide that forgoing public life entirely and pursuing vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience was more appealing.
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- The Pentagon said it is investigating Democratic Senator Mark Kelly over “serious allegations of misconduct” tied to a video in which he and other lawmakers urged troops to refuse illegal orders. As a retired Navy captain, Kelly can legally be recalled to active duty and face court martial. Kelly said in a statement that if the allegations were “meant to intimidate me and other members of Congress from doing our jobs and holding this administration accountable, it won’t work.”
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Evening Read
Elon Musk’s Worthless, Poisoned Hall of Mirrors
By Charlie Warzel
Over the weekend, Elon Musk’s X rolled out a feature that had the immediate result of sowing maximum chaos. The update, called “About This Account,” allows people to click on the profile of an X user and see such information as: which country the account was created in, where its user is currently based, and how many times the username has been changed. Nikita Bier, X’s head of product, said the feature was “an important first step to securing the integrity of the global town square.” Roughly four hours later, with the update in the wild, Bier sent another post: “I need a drink.”
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.
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