Critics sometimes suggest that the office of lieutenant governor should be abolished, especially in a state like Illinois, which has a very powerful governorship. Adlai Stevenson, III certainly thought so--the office almost certainly cost him the governorship in 1986, when a Larouchite upset the slated candidated for lieutenant governor in the Democratic primary. Illinois voters were certainly not going to elect a ticket that would place a Larouchite a heartbeat away from controlling the state's National Guard, and so Stevenson resigned as Democratic nominee (the Dems technically ran no one for governor in 1986), and stood instead as the candidate of the newly created Solidarity Party. The resulting confusion, coupled with his losing the ability to obtain straight-ticket Democratic voters, robbed Stevenson of any chance of winning.

The Land of Lincoln's current lieutenant governor, Pat Quinn, has"vowed to use the office to be an advocate for taxpayers and consumers": no one should mistake his office as a mere dispenser of patronage or trivial initiatives.

Among his recent initiatives: presiding over a statewide internet ballot . . . to select the official state reptile and official state amphibian. Winners were the painted turtle and the eastern tiger salamander. (The latter, which captured an impressive 19,217 votes in the amphibian contest, is the"largest of all Illinois terrestrial salamanders," and it"has a voracious appetite for any invertebrate it can overpower and swallow.")

It's nice to see Quinn has devoted himself to the important tasks of the people. How could anyone possibly say lieutenant governors are irrelevant?