Having been a part of the Montana University System for only five years, I had heard something about Richard Roeder's reputation but had never had opportunity to know him face to face. That changed when I took on the job for The Montana Professor of traveling to Roeder's Helena home in early October, 1995, to interview him about the proposed constitutional referendum. I had heard of Roeder's status as an MSU-Bozeman professor (Emeritus) and Montana historian; I knew less of his role in the 1972 Constitutional Convention. Roeder spoke quite modestly about that role. I found a friendly man, obviously quite ill, unafraid to voice his opinions. During most of the interview Roeder sat far back in his recliner chair, and at times it proved difficult to follow his voice. After the tape recorder shut off, we continued to talk for another hour about the University System, Montana history, and writer Norman Maclean, and I found his conversation quite stimulating. Roeder described his work in the Schwinden administration and his hopes to continue, as an adjunct historian, at Carroll College.
Though Roeder was quite sick, I was still taken by surprise when, a scant two months later, I read the front-page obituary article in the Great Falls Tribune. That article spoke more accurately of Roeder in 1972 than his own modesty would allow: he functioned, in fact, as a central player in the Constitutional Convention, and thus had a major role in the formation of the MUS's Board of Regents and Office of the Commissioner. I realized then that I had unwittingly had the final exclusive interview with Roeder, and I hope his passing underlines the importance of his comments. Roeder speaks ambivalently in the interview, but if one theme emerges, it is this: though the Commissioner/Board of Regents structure has disappointed and often fallen well short of 1972 expectations, it remains a far sounder mode of governance than the proposed alternative.
WELTZIEN: I'm talking with Richard Roeder about the proposed constitutional referendum to dissolve the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and the Board of Regents.
ROEDER: I think it is a total disaster to propose what they're proposing to do, and it violates a lot of the things we had hoped that we would achieve in the 1972 Constitutional Convention. I might just run through some of the things that we were thinking about and maybe that will provoke some questions from you, Alan. And also I must tell you that other commitments and illness have precluded my full examination of the documentary record. I did talk with others who were ardent in their concerns about the educational article. But nevertheless what follows is personal and cannot be regarded as the intent of the framers.
First of all I had other functions in the Convention. I was on the Executive Committee to redraft the executive article, and more importantly, on the Style and Drafting Committee, which was the rather small group that tried to put the various reports into English--at least, decent legal English. You might say, if you know something about the Constitutional Convention of 1787, that we were the Gouverneur Morris of the Constitutional Convention.
Well, on the other hand I think you can regard what I'm going to say as the truth as I can remember it. It can't be regarded as intent of the framers. The intent of the framers is a very slippery term. Now in legal work they--courts and lawyers--will resort to the expression "intent of the framer." But that's a slippery notion.
WELTZIEN: You were, however, a framer.
ROEDER: Oh, yes, I was a delegate, one of a hundred.
WELTZIEN: There were one hundred delegates involved in the Constitutional Convention?
ROEDER: That was the size of the legislature at the time, of the House of Representatives. But as an MSU professor, I was very much concerned with--as many other delegates were, and there some other professional types in the Convention--what we could do to draft or at least influence the drafting of a constitutional structure that would meet what we thought we needed.
Now under the old system, all education was a matter for the Board of Education. Those who we today refer to as regents were then members of this board. So the same people who were responsible for kindergarten through 12 were also the makers of policy for higher education. Now this included the Superintendent of Public Instruction as a constitutional officer, whom they [the regents] regarded as a secretary of the administration of higher education.
WELTZIEN: Rich, when you are speaking of regents now, this is regents in the old system prior to the 1972 Convention.
ROEDER: Right, right, right. Now opposition [to] the system came from--or opposition [to] this arrangement--came because it enabled the Superintendent of Public Instruction to stick her fingers in the pie. And there were many of us that did not feel that the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the "schoolmarm" if you like of the state, should have any responsibilities for higher education. That's not what she was elected for. And the fact of the matter is [that] she was engaged in incessant lobbying, and there was also incessant lobbying among the unit presidents in Helena. They free-lanced and everybody was doing that. There was nobody really in control.
Now the Con-Con Education Committee--by that I mean the Committee that drafted the article on [higher] education--sought to change this by creating an independent Board of Regents that would also be part of a larger Board of Education. This is what they did in the Constitutional Convention. So that education, we assumed, would be--policies for public education would be formulated by one board. Now the Education Committee's original report did not include anything specific on higher education. When this proposal was in the Committee of the Whole, there were some delegates who objected, and Dorothy Eck of Bozeman was the principle one. She said very wisely that if you leave the Superintendent of Public Instruction in the Constitution as a constitutional officer, you've almost got to have a constitutional officer for higher education. Now why did she say this? Well, because when an office is mentioned in the Constitution it has certain unspecified inherent power. In other words, the current Board of Regents cannot tell the Superintendent of Public Instruction what to do. She's an independent officer. So a lot of us didn't like to go this way, but we recognized that Dorothy Eck's position was solid, and the only way to balance the power of the Superintendent of Public Instruction was to make a Commissioner of Higher Education as administrator for the Board of Regents, which is now exclusively higher education. And the Board of Regents would define his powers and duties. So you see how we got snookered into that. I don't think anybody was playing off the bottom of the deck. I think it just worked out that way and of course, I was on the Executive Committee and we had already lost the ball game on taking the Superintendent of Public Instruction out of the Constitution.
WELTZIEN: Was it the intent of most of the Convention to try to remove the Superintendent of Public Instruction from the Constitution as a constitutional officer?
ROEDER: I'd say yes.
WELTZIEN: Why?
ROEDER: Well, we're coming to that. So all this was supported, but well, okay, let's deal with it, Superintendent of Public Instruction, and why they wanted her removed. It was principally her interference with higher education. And many of us felt that that was simply not right; that if a person is authoritative in K through 12, there is no reason why she has authoritative understanding of higher education. I think that we enforced our position. Now many of us were willing to take this change because we based it on an assumption which was badly mistaken. We thought the Governors, one after another, would scour the state for qualified Regents and I don't think that their performance has said that they have done that.
WELTZIEN: I'm afraid you would find much concurrence.
ROEDER: Yeah.
WELTZIEN: But many of you delegates assumed that, idealistically assumed, that the Governor would appoint top--
ROEDER: --top Regents. And that the Commissioner would be factotum of the Regents. In other words, gopher. I never assumed that we would create--well, I'm going to say it, a Frankenstein; we created a Frankenstein.
WELTZIEN: When you use this notorious analogy, you speak of the Office of the Commissioner.
ROEDER: Yes, as it is, as it has become. That's my own opinion.
WELTZIEN: And why, in your opinion, has it become such?
ROEDER: Because he's not roped in. The Board of Regents buys his presentations. That includes the name change which I think is a total mistake.
WELTZIEN: Has this been, this imbalance of power, so to say, favoring the Commissioner over the Regents? Do you believe that true for most of the twenty-three years of the Constitution? Has it been entirely true? Has the balance of power always shown the Commissioner controlling the Regents rather than the Regents setting policy and being something other than an advisory body for the Commissioner?
ROEDER: Yeah, I see as an advisory,...well, I'm not sure it's even an advisory body. I think...
WELTZIEN: A rubber stamp?
ROEDER: A rubber stamp.
WELTZIEN: But that's not the intent of the article of the constitution?
ROEDER: No, no, no.
WELTZIEN: What happened early on then? Is this because of, in your estimation, a track record of poor appointees as Regents in the entire period since the adoption of the 1972 Constitution? That they have essentially given away their legislative authority to the Commissioner?
ROEDER: I think they have, the majority of them. I don't...I won't say that all of the Regents have done that. Another assumption is that the Regents would lobby for the whole University System, so that the presidents would stay at home and they wouldn't do their own lobbying. Well, it broke down and the presidents were over here all the time.
WELTZIEN: Did it break down immediately?
ROEDER: Initially? I can't remember that, I don't think it lasted very long, before the presidents were up here [in Helena during sessions]. See, you know, the first Commissioner was Larry Pettit and after the Constitution was adopted he came to Bozeman for a visit. He gave a presentation to the faculty and when he said okay, any questions? I said yeah, Larry, you know your constitutional theory as well as I do and that is, if there are no specified duties in the constitution, they going to be what the Regents can make them. And he smiled and giggled a little and said that's right, because he knew he was going to be the first Commissioner (laughing), and his brother-in-law [Tom Judge] was Governor.
WELTZIEN: But after his example the Regents have not, in your estimation, exercised the authority that is implicitly theirs in the Constitution; is that correct?
ROEDER: That's right.
WELTZIEN: Do you think then that the constitutional language needs revision or further specification, granting the Regents the authority that I'm hearing you say resides primarily with the Commissioner? Should the Constitution be revised?
ROEDER: Well, not the way that it was proposed. This is a real conundrum: how [do] you administer a system of higher education? But I don't think putting it four-square on the Regents is the way to go or, that four-square on the legislature and the Governor? as I read that referendum, is the way to go.
WELTZIEN: Some contend that this proposal would entirely politicize higher education, would make it the servant working under the whim of changing legislative appetites, of particular governors' interest or lack of interest in the Montana University System. Do you agree that it would politicize higher education and remove what autonomy and independence the University System owns under the '72 Constitution?
ROEDER: Yes, I do. I think maybe, that the '72 Constitution in its original intent might--there I go using "intent"--might be resurrected. But it would take a governor with guts and Regents with real political clout, who convince the people. And it would have to be based on their willingness--the Regents' willingness--to fight for it as it was conceived. And I don't think you'll find the manpower to do that. That's why I say that it's just damn tough.
WELTZIEN: But in your view if the language, the constitutional language, that the framers drafted grants a powerful Board of Regents, then why has the history of regential authority been as mixed a success as it has been?
ROEDER: Well, I guess that's how human ambition works. I don't know. At the present the sole restraint is Jeff Baker's ambition. I've talked with him about this and I told him about it, and I said that I wasn't going to pull punches. And I think his response was positive. I think he would like to see the Regents be more forceful.
WELTZIEN: I certainly got that impression.
ROEDER: Oh, did you hear from Jeff?
WELTZIEN: I've had--I saw him as recently as this afternoon [7 October 1995]. But I've heard in various meetings over the last eighteen months, I've heard him talk in that vein. What do you think is the best educational strategy for the University System to undertake in the current political climate? We have about thirteen months [as of October 1995] before this referendum comes to a vote. What are the best things that can be done to educate the citizenry as to the stakes in this seemingly attractive elimination of these parts of the 1972 Constitution?
ROEDER: Are you talking about defeating this referendum?
WELTZIEN: I am. I'm talking about defeating this referendum.
ROEDER: Well, I think that's going to be a tough job because I think the vast majority of people feel that the University System is a mess. And the only thing to do, God forbid, is put it in the hands of the people, God almighty! See, I'm a Tory; I'm a John Adams Federalist. And the people, yes? I mean that's my English teacher [who] used to refer to [the people] as "the unwashed." (Chuckling) Okay.
WELTZIEN: The climate now, of course, suggests that anything to eliminate in Helena is an automatic good.
ROEDER: I think that's true.
WELTZIEN: However ill-conceived that feeling, reduction is an end all and be all. So I wonder, as you, who helped to create this structure of Commissioner and the Board of Regents, how this structure can be saved? The Commissioner's office and the Regent's existence? How we can save that by defeating this referendum?
ROEDER: Well--
WELTZIEN: --given the political climate of now?
ROEDER: I think it's our only hope.
WELTZIEN: What should people know about the University System governance in the 1960s, for example, that led to the changes that you've been speaking to at the Constitutional Convention, that created this Article X, that created legal independence for a (higher) board of the University System? What needs to be known that has been forgotten in a scant generation?
ROEDER: Well, I think the history of the previous Regents and the lobbying of the individual units. And the point I was going to bring up next--well, we might as well mention it now--and that is, we conceived the Regents as not just working for appropriations but defending the University System. Obviously that means standing up to the witch hunters. And when I first came to Bozeman, Robert George Dunbar was already long on the faculty. He was nationally recognized as a scholar in the field of agricultural history and was later president of his [scholarly] organization. You couldn't find a sweeter or more kindly soul, and he was victimized by the witch hunters. And ever since learning of that, I just am very nervous. I don't want to see any repeat of that experience. For any university professor, politically safe or not.
WELTZIEN: When you speak of the witch hunters, could you speak in a little more detail by defining them?
ROEDER: Well, the people who in the old days saw a Communist under every bush, and some still do. You know we're not out of the woods on that, with the "Freemen" and so forth. The Regents have got to be a buffer, and a defensive mechanism, between faculty and the system as a whole.
WELTZIEN: And how well do you think they have served as a buffer, then?
ROEDER: Well, I'm not sure you can say, "very well," because we haven't had major attacks. We had one since I was on the faculty and that did not end well. I've already mentioned another negative role of the Regents and that is to keep the presidents [unit heads] at home.
WELTZIEN: Yes.
ROEDER: When the people see the presidents all running helter skelter around the Capitol, they say what the hell is going on? You know ? They can't just support their own unit; I mean, there has to be direction. There can't be a free-for-all. And here a little history comes into play. We all--the older ones of us--remember the success of Roland Renney in running what was then MSC, and his ability to get things for MSC: appropriations, buildings--whatever Renney thought MSC needed, he got. And boy did that raise hackles in Missoula!
WELTZIEN: But you indicated earlier that this intent hasn't worked that effectively. That the Regents have not served as primary lobbyists, for example, in the place of unit heads so that the unit heads have been lobbying pretty much as always. Is that correct?
ROEDER: Yes. They're little Renneys (chuckling). Renney would like that.
WELTZIEN: I wonder if there is any possible way that that would ever change? ROEDER: I don't know.
WELTZIEN: Do you feel, however, that because of the existence of the Board of Regents, there has been rather less individual unit lobbying on the part of the unit heads and more system lobbying, or has there been the same amount of "what's in it for my campus" presence at the Capitol as before?
ROEDER: I think it is pretty much the same except that I was surprised by the lack of opposition to the name change. But you can see why: it enhances the power of the two major presidents.
WELTZIEN: And what other points?
ROEDER: Two points. And that is, we've got to look at the tax bases somehow so that we can--I don't know if it is possible--ease the sense of burden. And of course, the sense of burden is going to get worse, as the Natelsons tell us that we're overtaxed. That has got to be tackled by a major force. That has got to be--well, I don't know how you put it, it's got to come from the Governor, I guess. I don't know that it comes from the Regents, although the Regents could do that. And if we thought about it the Regents and the Board of Education could combine to deal with that problem of the tax base for higher education. Now one last point.
WELTZIEN: Could you comment further about the likelihood of the Governor and/or the Regents and the Board of Education examining the tax base issue. What might be the outcome to sort of stabilize the fiscal basis of the University System? What should they be doing?
ROEDER: You mean the presidents?
WELTZIEN: Yes.
ROEDER: I don't know, but it ties into the last point I'm going to make, which complicates the problem: and that is, when a Constitution says every Montanan is subject to equal educational opportunity, so far as I am concerned--and the Chairman of the Board of Regents--that is meant to include the University System. Now can you imagine what happens if that's the case? But I am dead set on it; that was, you see, that was a hangover from the old system. Well, the way we always did it was to confine the Board of Regents mainly as it was just before the '72 Con-Con. Before that the Regents took over the previous Board of Education's notion of it applying only to K through 12. 1 don't think that's true. I think it is meant for every citizen, and sooner or later--when I'm long since resting in my ashes out in Resurrection Cemetery, you can remember what Richard said on this, because the day will have to come when it has to be, because we have got to have a more and more educated populace.
WELTZIEN: As you know there are enrollment increases at most of the units, if not all of them. There's quite a bit of admissions pressure, it's growing, and in the 1990s the University System finds access increasingly coming up against shrinking state allocations; the annual general fund appropriation for each unit declines. How will this, the intent of access, of equal opportunity for each Montana citizen to a higher education, how will that survive?
ROEDER: I don't know, I don't know. Maybe a junior college system if it's cheaper. I don't know how well our system does now. I used to think that the students who came from Glendive, Miles City, and Kalispell were ill-prepared. I don't know if that's still the truth. There's no greater time to stab at it than now. If you don't move, why, you're not going to move, and I just don't know. Again, it fits in with the Governor, the Regents and Education Task Force that I mentioned. Maybe that's a possibility in dealing with a tax base.
WELTZIEN: Other comments you would care to make, Rich, on the Constitutional referendum?
ROEDER: Well, I don't know if these make any sense, but they're the best I can do, as sick as I am.
WELTZIEN: What do you think the Board's relationship to the legislature should be, not what it has been?
ROEDER: Amicable.
WELTZIEN: Often it has been hostile?
ROEDER: Yes, And no more so than this last session. Yeah, I mean it was just--the guy who supplied the winning vote for the referendum was Ray Peck, who was supposed to be made Mr. Education in the House. And he's also a graduate of MSU. I don't know; if your alumni aren't loyal, who will be? I don't know.
WELTZIEN: Could you speculate any more for us as to what the future--the near future--would hold if this referendum passes and the Commissioner's Office and Board of Regents disappear, to be replaced by a Governor-appointed Education Commission, headed by a Director of Education? How would you characterize the change for the University System?
ROEDER: Well, I think it might be grim.