takes office as the first Wednesday in Jan-
uary (or the first Thursday in January if
the first Wednesday is New Year's Day).
The Committee arrived at this date by at-
tempting to approximate the amount of
time a governor-elect would need following
a November election to prepare to assume
office. The Committee also feels that the
General Assembly should take office at ap-
proximately the same time as the governor
so that it might organize, but that there
should be at least a month between the
time the governor takes office and when
the General Assembly meets in plenary
session. This period would allow the gov-
ernor to review the budget and to prepare
a legislative program. The Committee rec-
ognizes that this goal can only be met
through coordination of the executive ar-
ticle with the legislative article, and the
article on state finance and taxation.
This section also gives the General As-
sembly power to select the governor from
among the candidates having received a tie
vote in the event no candidate has received
a plurality in the general election. The
Committee feels that it is desirable to pro-
vide some technique to handle this remote
contingency, but does not think it necessary
to provide for a run-off election because of
the great unlikelihood of the situation ever
developing.
This section also provides that candi-
dates for governor and lieutenant governor
shall run as a team in the general election,
that each voter shall cast but a single vote
for the team, and that such vote shall be a
vote for both candidates on the team. This
would adopt the same practice followed in
six other states and the system tradition-
ally employed for the election of President
and Vice President of the United States.
The Committee feels that since, under
section 4.03 of the draft, the lieutenant
governor is to be the governor's assistant,
it is desirable to assure that both candi-
dates will be of the same political party.
Consideration was also given as to whether
a similar requirement should be constitu-
tionally mandated for the party primaries,
but it was felt that such a requirement
would render the parties' nominating pro-
cedures too inflexible.
For example, the General Assembly may
wish to have only the candidates for gov-
ernor nominated in the party primaries,
but have candidates for lieutenant governor
nominated in conventions following the
party primaries.
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Sections 4.06 through 4.11 deal with the
related problems of gubernatorial disability
and succession. Section 4.06 deals with the
narrow problem of what happens when a
governor-elect fails to assume office. When
the governor-elect is disqualified, resigns or
dies following his election, the lieutenant
governor-elect succeeds to the office for the
full term. When the governor-elect fails to
take office for some other reason, for ex-
ample, illness, the lieutenant governor-elect
serves as acting governor until the gov-
ernor-elect takes office or until the office
shall become vacant.
The distinction between succession to the
office of governor and service as acting gov-
ernor is developed in section 4.10. A pro-
cedure through which the office of governor
may be declared vacant is established in
section 4.08. The provisions dealing with
the order of succession when there is no
lieutenant governor to fulfill the role as-
signed to him are set forth in section 4.10.
Section 4.07: Lieutenant Governor as
Acting Governor: This section establishes
two situations in which the lieutenant gov-
ernor shall serve as acting governor. First,
the governor can temporarily transfer his
powers to the lieutenant governor by noti-
fying him in writing that he will be tem-
porarily unable to carry out the duties of
the office. For example, this technique
might be used when the governor was about
to be hospitalized for an operation. Second,
the lieutenant governor is directed to serve
as acting governor when the governor is
disabled and thereby unable to communi-
cate his inability to carry out the duties of
office to the lieutenant governor. For ex-
ample, this would occur if the governor
were in a coma.
In either situation the lieutenant gov-
ernor continues to serve as acting governor
until the governor notifies him in writing
that he is able to carry out his duties or
until the office becomes vacant. Vacancy
can occur in several ways. For example, a
vacancy would occur if the governor died,
resigned, was convicted on impeachment,
or was removed from office pursuant to the
terms of section 4.08 of this article.
It should be noted that this section does
not automatically transfer the powers of
the office of governor to the lieutenant gov-
ernor when the governor leaves the State
but that the governor is free to make such
a transfer by written notification if he
should so choose.
Section 4.08: Removal of Governor from
Office:
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