The Dangers of Staffing by Patronage

Brad Henry has charged his transition team with reviewing the various state agencies he will take nominal charge of on January 13th. I say nominal, because boards and commissions control so many of the state's agencies that the Governor does not have has much control as the public would expect. In many cases, agencies are overseen by appointed commissions whose membership he has not appointed. Nevertheless, the transition team has been broken up into three or four-member committees that are interviewing the leadership of the state agencies now. Word is that their recommendations are due next week.

Brad Henry has taken a bipartisan approach thus far - appointing both Democrats and Republicans to the transition team. Preliminary signs are that he is not going to politicize the agencies he controls. Politicization, replacing everyone in state agencies with partisan cronies and friends-of-cronies, is destructive in the short and long-terms. In Texas, even the secretaries in the agencies get replaced if they aren't of the "right" party. It's one reason Texas' state government is as ineffective as it is. Their agencies have no institutional memory. Everyone that knows what mistakes not to repeat, get thrown out everytime the Governor changes. Texas' state government is so politicized that there is constant political struggling in every section of every state agency. It's hard to get the peoples' work done if everyone from agency head to secretary and mail room clerk owes their position to political patronage. That has, to a large degree, not been the case in Oklahoma. Let's hope it stays that way.