Wisconsin’s Treasurer says he has drafted a proposed constitutional amendment to eliminate State Treasurer, and Secretary of State, as elected positions. Currently both of these offices are elected in midterm years in partisan elections. If this proposal passed, it would be somewhat more difficult for minor parties to retain their spot on the ballot. The law requires them to poll 1% for any statewide office in midterm years. See this story.
One more effort to have a EXECUTIVE DICTATORSHIP ???
See Hitler in 1933-1934.
When will things start happening automatically ???
See 1773-1776, 1859-1861, 1914, 1939.
An irony is that the current Secretary of State is the great-great-nephew of “Fighting Bob” La Follette, the 1924 Progressive presidential candidate. Fighting Bob’s son, Robert La Follette, Jr. was a US senator who ran as a Progressive, but in 1946 decided to run as a Republican and lost in the primary to Joe McCarthy (as liberals were suspicious of La Follette’s leaving the Progressive party, and conservatives were suspicious of him rejoining the Republican Party).
Typically, state treasurer’s don’t really have much to do. The original idea was to have someone other than the governor handling the State’s checkbook, at a time when there would be only a few officials in the capitol most of the time, and the legislature would meet for a few weeks in the winter when farmer-legislators would take off.
Often time the Treasurer and Secretary of State were women who might be elected to offices which were more administrative in nature, and weren’t as attractive to male politicians who were more interested in positions with some power and decision making.
In Texas, Warren Harding and Jesse James were long time State Treasurers. Then Ann Richards and Kay Bailey Hutchison were Treasurer before being elected as Governor and US Senator, respectively. The last Treasurer campaigned on a platform of abolishing the office.
Not incidentally at all, the current Treasurer and Secretary of State in Wisconsin, are a Republican and Democrat.
If Wisconsin were to adopt a Top 2 Open Primary, there would be no need for party qualification (like Washington, Wisconsin does not have party registration).