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Yecke Should Be Confirmed Jump ahead, if you will, a handful of years from now when Tim Pawlenty is no longer governor of Minnesota. Personally, I'm reluctant to imagine him out of office because of losing a re-election bid. So in my imagining he has moved on to be commissioner of the National Hockey League. Or as he would like even better, as a forward for the Wild (either right wing or left wing, I trust he wouldn't care). But whatever Pawlenty's next assignment turns out to be, please stick with me and further assume the following: His successor is a DFLer, and that he or she picks an education commissioner (1) who has a well-thought-out philosophy about how elementary and secondary education in Minnesota ought to work; (2) while some people don't like that philosophy, it has the advantage of being snugly aligned with the new governor's ideas; (3) by any reasonable standards, the commissioner (let's make her a woman) is competent to fulfill her duties; and (4) given that education is perhaps the most passionate subject that state and local governments grapple with, she finds herself quickly immersed in a series of contentious issues. We need to imagine two more things: Even though Pawlenty's successor is a DFLer, the state Senate -- the body that confirms or rejects gubernatorial appointees -- is now controlled by Republicans. And for good and concluding measure, let's assume that several years earlier, when Pawlenty was still in office, a DFL-controlled Senate rejected his nominee for the top education job, a woman by the name of Cheri Pierson Yecke. Keep this setup in mind for the cycle of political violence it portends. Tit for tat, rat-a-tat. Why did Senate DFLers, several years earlier in this sour make-believe, fire Yecke? Was it because certain groups and individuals disliked how she orchestrated the writing of new academic standards for elementary and secondary schools to replace the dreadful standards of the discredited Profile of Learning? That was a large part of it, though "disliked" doesn't approach describing the visceral and exaggerated contempt certain critics seemed to have both for the new standards themselves and for their main author. Or might the DFL-controlled Senate have gotten rid of Yecke because they saw an opportunity to slash and draw blood from the popular Republican governor who had appointed her? I make it a point to rarely question motives, but it's hard to believe that something nakedly partisan of this kind wasn't at work in the thumbs down. Two questions down, one to go. Actually, what remains is the most pertinent question in matters like these: Was Yecke denied confirmation because she was insufficiently qualified to serve? This was not even close to the case, as she held a doctorate in education; she had served in senior education positions in the state of Virginia and the U.S. Department of Education; she was a veteran public school teacher -- and her resume didn't stop there. Time remains for one last bad trip through legislative time, culminating with the current session. Historically, the overriding test for confirming gubernatorial nominees in Minnesota has been whether they are competent to serve, as determined with sobriety by the state Senate. It has not been whether senators are fond of the policies advocated by nominees, or whether those nominees are presumably proximate to some supposed "mainstream." It has been understood that governors have the perfect right to appoint Cabinet members, if qualified, who share their philosophy and who are committed to carrying out their plans. It also has been understood that legislators, if they have the votes, have the right of turning a governor's agenda into mincemeat -- but that it isn't kosher for them to chop off the heads of honorable men and women who are nominated to run cabinet-level agencies. Let the record show that I very much like Cheri Yecke and support what she's trying to do. But that's not the key point here, or at least it shouldn't be. What really counts is that by any consistent standard, she's thoroughly qualified to serve as commissioner of education and deserves to be confirmed. Is there a cricket way of getting rid of executive branch officials? Of course -- it's called an election, and once every four years it provides an excellent opportunity to clean one house or another. But in intervening years, do we really want to go down the nasty and spiraling road on which some legislators are revving to rumble? -- Mitchell B. Pearlstein is President of Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted. |