The power struggle between top officials of the state gaming commission and Revenue Director M. Michael Cooke flared briefly several weeks ago and then faded.
But it hasn’t been resolved. It still raises a basic policy question: How much control should a chief executive have over the bureaucracy?
Some, including many now in Washington, would say that control is ultimate. Voters elect governors and presidents because they like their policies, and bureaucrats should have to implement them.
But others argue that government, even within the executive branch, isn’t just for the winning party. The tempering influence of outsiders is needed to get broader, less partisan perspectives.
That’s what boards and commissions do. Like private-sector boards of directors, they know what’s going on, but their livelihoods don’t depend on pleasing the boss. In the public sector, they serve as watchdogs, their political and professional diversity providing a check on executive power.
What’s going on in state government lately suggests the executive branch would like more control over these independent boards – not just the gaming commission, but others like the lottery commission and even the PERA board. (Disclosure: My wife worked for the lottery and now enjoys a PERA pension.)
Commissions recently have been subjected to criticism, reform proposals and actual rule changes diminishing their power. In the case of the gaming commission, it was enough to convince Chairwoman Natalie Meyer to warn the governor of a “constitutional crisis.”
John Tipton, a lawyer appointed by Democratic Gov. Roy Romer, was revenue director from 1988 to 1992 and worked on the gaming implementation law. He agrees with Meyer, the Republican former secretary of state, that the gaming board is “significantly more autonomous than any other commission than the state.”
Some of this quarrel makes sense only to those who understand the vast bureaucracy of state government (which, compared to the federal government, is only half-vast). Meyer’s key complaint, for example, is that Cooke used “spending authority” to thwart the gaming commission’s constitutionally granted budget powers.
Meyer says Cooke “eviscerated” the commission, making major personnel moves without telling commissioners, denying them direct communication with key staff.
“In my mind, she was trampling on the constitution,” Meyer said. And she doesn’t understand why “the governor was protecting her.” The director has alienated many Revenue Department employees. She is high-handed and “vindictive,” Meyer says.
But Gov. Bill Owens took Cooke’s side, calling Meyer’s conduct “disruptive.” In a Jan. 20 statement removing Meyer and Vice Chairman Robert Millman, Owens said they “were not providing the leadership needed.” That led to the sympathetic resignation of a third commissioner on the five-member board. (A commissioner’s compensation, by the way, averages $200 a month.)
Cooke agrees the commission “clearly” has authority to set tax rates for casinos. But she says the governor is the budget authority, and the department makes personnel decisions.
“Certain commissioners definitely believed their role extended far beyond their statutory or constitutional authority … that they really answered to no one,” she said.
Cooke says the dispute came to a head for a petty reason – because she denied the commission’s request to hold a metro-area retreat. “A couple of commissioners mentioned that my denying the retreat was kind of the last straw,” she said.
The governor has asked for an attorney general’s opinion on who has authority over what. Meyer has no current plans to pursue a court test.
But she’s a little bit hurt and a lot angry. “Michael, you’re not dealing with somebody who just fell off the turnip truck,” she said.
“I would think the public would care about some executive director [collecting] a ton of money and not putting the money where it’s supposed to go,” she said. “I would think they would care about an executive director who’s not abiding by the constitution.”
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.
