What made Walker run? Former governors reflect on past National Governors' Association, Center for Policy Research, Reflections on Being Governor, Washington, D.C.: National Governors' Association, 1981, pp. 269.

BOOK REVIEW By JOE P. PISCIOTTE

STATE government is a billion-dollar business which daily affects the lives of all citizens. Yet state government has historically not been a topic that generates active scholarly interest or publication. Particularly sparse is a body of literature on the governors and how they conduct their offices, although there have been recent volumes published. (Noteworthy are: Larry Sabato, Goodbye to Goodtime Charlie, the American Governor Transformed, 1950-1975; and H. Edward Flentje, Selected Papers of Governor Robert F. Bennett, A Study of Good Government and "Civics Book" Politics).

This scarcity has led the National Governors' Association (NGA) to create its own literature in order to provide resources for the New Governors' Seminar that it sponsors after gubernatorial elections. A significant part of that effort is the newly pubished volume Reflections on Being Governor. The book is the result of debriefing interviews with 15 former governors who left office in 1977 and 1979. Lynn Muchmore, formerly with the NGA's Center for Policy Development, and now budget director for the state of Kansas, conducted most of the interviews. Based on his analysis of the interviews, he has written a superb overview of how former governors, with the advantages of hindsight, view their roles and responsibilities. Muchmore was assisted in several of the interviews by Thad Beyle, Jack A. Brizius and Ellen Field.

While the governors were urged to discuss special problems that affected their respective administrations, Muchmore and his colleagues did an outstanding job in focusing the reflections on several predetermined objectives. More specifically, the interviewers sought: 1) to evoke perceptions of the leadership, partisan, intergovernmental, and managerial roles that governors fill; and 2) to explore the boundaries of the advisory system upon which governors rely. Among the special problems discussed are personnel selection, ethics, relations with the legislature, and relations with the press.

While the full volume is worthwhile and informative reading, followers of Illinois government and politics will find the chapter on Gov. Dan Walker particularly interesting. Readers of all persuasions — Democrats, Republicans or Independents, supporters or critics of his administration — should all agree that the interviewers evoked an introspection from Walker that is revealing and noteworthy. The former governor talks openly about his relationship with Mayor Daley, the Democratic party, the General Assembly, his staff and cabinet, and the press. He also demonstrates an ability to place the goals, problems, successes and failures of his administration into perspective.

For example, on the sources of advice on major issues, he reflects: "The most useful was from the people who had worked with me in an advisory capacity during the campaign. But at the same time, it was the most unuseful — in the sense we developed, in retrospect, a kind of 'circle the wagons' mentality .... We felt beset, and so there tended to be a closed-in approach in the whole area in advice and counseling . . . .1 think we would have been much better off if my deputy, Victor de Grazia, had been outside the administration. It just created too many problems that we would have done without."

On the subject of achieving his goals and objectives and the role of staff in working with him on those goals, he states: "One of the things that I didn't perceive early enough ... is the need to take a manageable number of big issues and concentrate on them .... The reason is a very practical one. The reason is really your staff. You've only got, as a Governor, three or four or five, or whatever the number is — but it's few, certainly less than 10 — people that you rely on heavily and trust implicitly and really want to work with on a big matter."

On the role of governor as manager, Walker points out that: "Nobody cares. The media doesn't care whether you are actually managing state government or not. There's no glamour in it. Very few people care about it .... It's not a political plus .... In terms of getting votes or a better image or better reputation, you'd better spend your time somewhere else."

One of the subjects that generated the most diverse opinion among the governors interviewed was their relationships with their legislatures. As Muchmore points out, Walker represents one extreme view on the importance of legislative relations to the gubernatorial performance: "Most of the people in the state of Illinois, and I think this is true across the country, are much more affected in their daily lives by the operations of the administrative and executive part of government than they are by 90 percent of the bills that go through the General Assembly."

On the media, Walker shares the feeling of many governors that the biggest negative development has been an emphasis on investigative reporting. "Everybody wants to be a Woodward and Bernstein . . . there's this attitude on the part of editors of 'editorial layback' — that the guys have got to be given their heads .... Only an institution like Mayor Daley's could criticize the press and get away with it in politics today." Walker continues, "But the problem with the press was my problem, just as I could have done a better job with the legislature. It wasn't so much the white-knight thing as it was incredible mishandling on my part — incredible. I believed and still believe, and I still get rapped on the head for it locally, that there should be an adversary relationship between government and the press. I really believe that. I think that's the way the system ought to work. I think there ought to be an adversary relationship between executive and legislature. And whenever they got 'buddy buddy,' watch out for the sake of the republic."

Walker and the other governors interviewed make observations that are applicable not only to their respective states but possibly others as well. For example, Governor Askew of Florida, who was apprehensive about the balance of powers between the executive and legislative branches and the potential of legislative interference in matters of administration, feels one symptom is the enlargement of the legislative staffs. "You wind up staffing the legislative branch in order to give it some independence. Then the staff has to have something to do. So they wind up really usurping the authority of the executive branch under the guise of oversight."

June 1981/Illinois Issues/13

Students of state government who attempt to interpret or extrapolate Reflections on Being Governor to their own state must keep in mind Sam Gove's law of variation, i.e., "It all depends on the state." It also depends on the person. A gubernatorial administration is not only a reflection of the state's political culture at one point in time, but it is also a reflection of the personality of the individual who temporarily holds the reins of government. Reflections on Being Governor emphasizes that gubernatorial incumbency is indeed transitory — one-term governors are becoming more the rule than the exception — but each still has a profound and individual impact on the direction of a state's public policy. As Much-more concludes, "each of the governorships is a unique experiment that can never be replicated, and the interviews remind us that the dimensions of the office depend in many ways upon the dimensions of the persons who hold it."

Joe P. Pisciotte is director of the Center for Urban Studies, Wichita State University, and was director of the Department of Business and Economic Development under the Walker administration.

14/June 1981 /Illinois Issues