The lieutenant governship: A role ripe for a remaking

It is not true that Minnesota has been unable to figure out through 156 years of statehood what a lieutenant governor is supposed to do.

Minnesota has been befuddled about lieutenant governors for only 42 years.

For the first 114 years of the North Star State's existence, lieutenant governors had a specific duty. They were constitutionally directed to be the presiding officer during floor sessions of the Minnesota Senate — in addition to staying here, healthy and ready in case the governor is visited by the Grim Reaper or stricken with the impulse to resign.

Lieutenant governors were also independent political operators, elected separately from governors. Sometimes the two were of opposing political parties and were rivals for the top job. Lieutenant governors could fire potshots at governors at uncomfortably close range. Witness GOP Gov. Elmer Andersen and DFL Lt. Gov. Karl Rolvaag circa 1962, and Rolvaag and DFL Lt. Gov. A.M. (Sandy) Keith in 1966.

Understandably, governors didn't enjoy this arrangement. That was one reason for the constitutional change enacted in 1972 that yoked governors and lieutenant governors as a ticket. It also stripped lieutenant governors of their state Senate duties, leaving a gaping void in their job descriptions.

In three weeks, Tina Flint Smith will become the 10th lieutenant governor since 1974 to try to fill that gap. She succeeded retiring Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon as DFL Gov. Mark Dayton's ballotmate this year.

To varying degrees and with varying wiles and styles, Smith's last nine predecessors have all aspired to fill their days as a meaningful player in their governors' administrations. Most of them, including Prettner Solon, have left office with that aim unmet.

Smith, 56, arrives better positioned than any of her nine antecedents to pull it off. That's because she has already been, in effect, "deputy governor," serving for most of the past four years as Dayton's chief of staff.

Most of the previous nine lieutenant governors didn't start in their governors' inner circles, and never truly landed there. They were chosen as running mates because they possessed a desirable political base or reputation distinct from the governor's own.

Consider: Dayton, whose surname was once synonymous with downtown Minneapolis, tapped Prettner Solon, a popular state senator from Duluth, in 2010. Tim Pawlenty, a lifelong suburbanite, tapped exurban farmer Carol Molnau in 2002. Jesse Ventura, a brash wrestling and talk-radio celebrity, chose a mild-mannered teacher, Mae Schunk, in 1998. Arne Carlson, who had once served on the Minneapolis City Council and represented Minneapolis in the Legislature, went with two outstate women, Red Wing mayor Joanell Dyrstad in 1990 and St. Cloud state Sen. Joanne Benson in 1994.

These were all dedicated public servants, employed in various ways by the governors they served and, in some cases, able to craft their own assignments. But their primary service to their respective governors was getting them elected, not helping them govern.

Not so for Smith. Though she had been a General Mills marketer, business communications entrepreneur, Planned Parenthood executive and Minneapolis mayoral chief of staff before going to work for Dayton in 2010, she was not allied with a specific subset of Minnesota voters. She campaigned doggedly this year and relished stumping the state. But it would be a stretch to claim that her popular appeal contributed greatly to Dayton's re-election.

She does not have to break into Dayton's inner circle. She's been there all along.

But it would be a mistake to think that Lt. Gov. Smith will simply be Chief of Staff Smith with a new title on her stationery. A chief of staff is the consummate insider. Smith said recently that she thinks her work as lieutenant governor will lie as much outside the Capitol complex as within it. She hopes to be Dayton's liaison to Minnesotans — able to say, perhaps with more credibility than her predecessors could, that she speaks for the governor and can speak to the governor on Minnesotans' behalf.

"I can be the eyes and ears of the administration," she said. "It'll make me a better adviser if I can."

Prognosticators would add that it would also make her a better candidate to succeed Dayton in 2018. She pooh-poohs such talk now. But at a womenwinning gathering in St. Paul Thursday night, this scribe overheard admirers urging her to get ready to run for governor in four years.

"There's been no women governor in Minnesota yet," Smith observed as she addressed the gathering. "Hopefully, sometime soon," she added.

As I said, Tina Flint Smith is positioned to change a 42-year-old pattern.