The frosty relationship between Gov. Tom Wolf and Lt. Gov. Mike Stack has exposed what some say is a flaw in the way Pennsylvania elects those who aspire to these high offices.

The problem occurs at the primary election level where gubernatorial and lieutenant governor candidates run separately, rather than as a team. The winners of the primaries then are supposed to run arm-in-arm in the general election, as provided in the state Constitution."A lieutenant governor shall be chosen jointly with the governor by the casting by each voter of a single vote applicable to both offices, for the same term, and subject to the same provisions as the governor. …"Throughout the state's history, there has rarely been as wide a chasm as between Wolf and Stack.The cool relationship has meant their contact with other has been infrequent. Stack and his wife, Tonya, had been accused of verbally abusing members of their state police detail and bullying some of the state-supplied housekeeping staff.Wolf had several pointed conversations with Stack about his lapse of judgment, and Stack, while contrite and publicly apologetic, stupidly referred to these episodes as "Stack moments."Wolf even stripped Stack of much of his state police detail and drastically reduced the staff in the state-financed home in which the Stacks stay.State Sen. Dave Argall, R-Schuylkill, wants to do something about all of this, so he and 14 of his Senate colleagues, including two Democrats, have introduced a bill that would have gubernatorial candidates choose their lieutenant governor running mates before the primary, then the two would run as a team throughout the election cycle.Since this would require a state constitutional amendment, it would need passage in two consecutive legislative sessions, then go to state voters in a direct referendum. Even if everything fell into place perfectly, the proposal could not meet regulatory muster until after the 2018 gubernatorial election, meaning that the earliest it would go into effect is 2022.Four other states - Alaska, Louisiana, Massachusetts and New York - elect their lieutenant governors the way Pennsylvania does now.Of the 43 states that select their lieutenant governors through an election process, 21 of them, including New Jersey, do so on a single ticket in both the primary and general elections. There are 17 states, including Delaware, which elect their governors and lieutenant governors entirely separately.As for the other seven states, five do not have lieutenant governors - Arizona, Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon and Wyoming. The other two states do not have direct elections for lieutenant governor. In Tennessee and West Virginia, whoever is elected president of the state senate becomes the de facto lieutenant governor, according to Ballotpedia. In Tennessee, the full title of the officeholder is "lieutenant governor and speaker of the senate." In West Virginia, recent legislation allows the senate president to use the title "lieutenant governor."When the framers of constitutions are considering electoral proposals for the number two in command, there are sometimes unforeseen consequences. Such was the case in the U.S. presidential election of 1800, about 13 years after the U.S. Constitution had been ratified.Members of the Electoral College were allowed to vote for two people for president, with the person with the highest number of electoral votes becoming president and the one with the second highest number becoming vice president.The constitutional delegates, however, had not anticipated the rise of political parties. In 1800, the Democratic-Republican party chose Thomas Jefferson as its presidential candidate and Aaron Burr to be vice president. The plan was for one of its electors to abstain from casting a second vote for Burr, allowing Jefferson to become president.The plan failed, because each elector who voted for Jefferson also voted for Burr, resulting in a tie. This threw the election into the U.S. House of Representatives, where Jefferson was elected on the 36th ballot.To make sure this didn't happen again, Congress and the states ratified the 12th amendment, which calls for electors to make a distinct choice between president and vice president.By Bruce Frassinelli |

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