As lieutenant governor, keeping quiet about legislative moves
Although Scott approached his position as lieutenant governor seriously, he also believed firmly that he should not interfere in legislative business, he explains. He remembers in particular keeping quiet when the legislature voted itself a generous retirement package that he felt was unfair.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Robert W. (Bob) Scott, February 4, 1998. Interview C-0336-1. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACK FLEER:
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Was there any time during your service as lieutenant governor where you
felt the desire, or maybe even the compulsion, to make any proposals of
how to deal with public problems, where in a sense you took the
initiative? Or was that just a forbidden option?
- ROBERT W. (BOB) SCOTT:
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Well, I don't think I took any highly-visible role or
leadership role in anything particularly. I was very conscious of the
fact that, even though I was president of the senate and involved, I was
not a senator. Jim Hunt made that mistake, early on when he was
lieutenant governor. He went in there and started acting like he was the
president pro tem, and they quickly put him back in his place. I was
aware of that to begin with, and so I didn't try to go to
committee meetings, I didn't put a heavy hand out there, as
it were. I saw my role as trying to keep things moving, the process
going. I never tried to interfere.
One thing I did do—we had a special session on redistricting,
and I sat in on a couple of those meetings, because sometimes the
committees would meet at night, you know, and they'd just be
drawing all kinds of lines and so on. I remember once we were sitting in
there, and I was really more just curious to know what they were doing,
and it wasn't even a real formal meeting of the committee,
they were just trying to come up with some solution. This is when the
"one man, one vote" rule came
into place, and some legislators weren't going to be back. So
this was after that. Anyway, it was redistricting, where some counties
are obviously going to have to give up a legislator, and they were
trying desperately to protect those legislators. So they had some
scenarios drawn up on the chalkboard, and then they all broke and went
for lunch or dinner, and a reporter came by and we saw it the next day
in the paper. And that taught us a lesson. That was the first time. In
that particular case, then-representative Chunker Wallace of Montgomery
County—that was the one being eliminated, and it showed it
being eliminated. That was the first he knew about it, when he saw it in
the papers. That caused all kinds of repercussions. You see, that was on
the House side, he was on the house and we were on the Senate.
- JACK FLEER:
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But you wouldn't propose any legislation or take any
initiative in public policy?
- ROBERT W. (BOB) SCOTT:
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No. I did not have an agenda and I wasn't running for
anything. One of the things that was interesting to me: it was during
this period of time that the legislature set up its own retirement
system. And of course— [pause]
Wait a minute, now, I'm sorry, I'm getting the
times confused. This was later, when I became governor. But it was being
talked about in my last years as lieutenant governor. A retirement
system for the general assembly, for legislators. The members of the
senate staff, which would have been included in that, along with the
house members and their staff, they were lobbying for it hard, and I
remember getting involved in that and telling the staff
that they needed to stay out of that, that they should not
be, even though it would affect them. They were for it, very much for
it, and I said, "That's not your role."
- JACK FLEER:
-
Now, this was the staff of your office, as lieutenant governor, or the
staff of the legislators?
- ROBERT W. (BOB) SCOTT:
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The staff of the legislators. I only had a staff of one, and that was the
secretary. Now, later on, someone asked me once, "If you had
had the veto power when you were governor, would there have been
anything that you would veto?" And I said, "Well, I
don't know but one thing for sure—now, there may
have been some other things, but since I didn't have it, I
didn't worry about it. But I would have vetoed the
legislation creating the retirement system for legislators."
Because I thought it was grossly unfair. They set up a retirement system
for themselves far better than that for state employees or teachers.
Much better. And I just didn't think that was right. I would
have vetoed that. Not that I was against a retirement system, but the
way they set it up.