Regents should have stood up to Branstad

Gov. Terry Branstad went too far in demanding leaders of the State Board of Regents resign this spring.

And regents were wrong to cave to the governor's strong-arm tactics.

Regents President David Miles and President Pro Tempore Jack Evans stepped down midterm after weeks of pressure they say divided and immobilized the board. They'll stay on to finish their current terms, but not in leadership roles.

Branstad apparently made it clear he wanted the leaders gone back in May. (Full disclosure: Evans, a Cedar Rapids Republican, serves on The Gazette board of directors. Full, full disclosure: I've never met him). Branstad says he wants the board to elect leaders he'll find easier to work with.

Maybe the governor still is miffed about regents' signing off this spring on The Harkin Institute for Public Policy at Iowa State University. That's no excuse to play politics with an independent board.

Miles and Evans were right the first time when they ignored the governor's crude political shove at the balance of power. Branstad's call for regents to elect leaders who share his “general philosophy” is flat-out backward.

It's his job to appoint regents, state senators' job to confirm them. And it's the regents themselves who elect a board president and president pro tem to represent them - not the governor.

I'm sure it would be easier on Branstad if he were emperor, if he didn't have to work with anyone if he didn't feel like it. But that's not the way the system works, and for good reason. Dividing things up this way helps keep power balanced and politics in check.

If the governor didn't think Miles and Evans were doing their jobs - thought they were incompetent or were guilty of misconduct - he could have tried to remove them from the board, again with Senate confirmation.

Then again, not being a rubber stamp isn't likely cause enough for removal. I guess that's why he took this road. Still, that didn't have to be the end.

In Miles' three-page resignation letter, he said it was friction among board members, not the governor's request, that persuaded him finally to step down. “Already, decision-making has become more difficult and time is being taken from the ongoing work of the Board,” he wrote.

Branstad should have taken seriously his responsibility to find common ground and work with board leaders elected by their peers.

But regents in this case had a responsibility, too. They should have stood their ground.

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jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net