EDITORIAL: Bullock-McLean feud reveals flawed system

It’s been quite educational the past few weeks to watch Gov. Steve Bullock scramble as he tries to reassure the citizens of Montana that he is an adept administrator.

The problem is that his administration has been hit for the second time with a personnel problem that can be laid directly at Bullock’s doorstep.

Lt. Gov. Angela McLean announced on Nov. 30 that she was stepping down to take a new position in the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education. The funny thing was that McLean told reporters that she had just informed the governor about the change that morning.

Then Bullock’s spokesman Tim Crowe said, “He found out when she called this morning.”

Something didn’t sound right, and indeed it wasn’t.

Eventually, reporters got to the bottom of the story by requesting the email record between Bullock and McLean. It turned out that as long ago as May, there had been a continuing conversation about whether McLean would leave the administration or not. In an interview, Bullock said that McLean, a former high school teacher, was “disruptive” because of her frustration with the role she played as lieutenant governor.

What made McLean’s departure so stunning was that it is the second time Bullock has had to replace his lieutenant governor, and more importantly, the second time one of his appointments has gone up in flames.

McLean was appointed lieutenant governor in February 2014 after Brig. Gen. John Walsh resigned the position when he was appointed U.S. senator by Bullock. McLean was selected without any public input, and more importantly so was Walsh.

The Walsh appointment to the Senate blew up when the New York Times ran a story about allegations that Walsh had plagiarized a 2007 research paper he wrote at the Army War College. Bullock had already been criticized for not using a public process to seek qualified applicants for the Senate job, and when Walsh was forced to drop out of his race for the Senate, that criticism just got worse.

Now this...

A nasty trail of emails on both public and personal accounts has just heightened the drama. They show McLean being marginalized by the governor’s office while gamely trying to remain on the ticket despite being told essentially “fat chance.”  

We may never know why the bad blood between Bullock and McLean exists, but it certainly raises questions about the process of appointing a lieutenant governor when a vacancy arises.

It may be time for the Legislature to step in and set matters right. In the next session, we strongly encourage a full discussion of the problem. It does not seem unreasonable that an appointed lieutenant governor should have to be vetted by a public process in order to serve the public good.

One possibility is for the Montana Senate to hold hearings and vote to confirm such an appointment, just as the U.S. Constitution now requires the U.S. Senate to do in the case of a vacancy at the vice presidential level.

Certainly we can do better than the current system, which seems to invite turmoil.