When we talk about Governors, we tend to focus on the powers that they have, especially in relation to the powers held by other entities of government (e.g. other elected Executive officials, independent boards and commissions, the Legislature, the Judiciary, etc.) Think about governmental power and governmental authority as a pie: when we slice a pie, we usually try to cut it into equal pieces. However, in state government, the pieces aren’t always equal: sometimes the Governor has more authority than the Legislature when it comes to writing the budget; in other states, the reverse is true. In some states, the Governor has the power to appoint most (if not all) of the other Executive-branch officials; in other states, many of those offices are elected directly by the people. What we’ll focus on in this unit is how that “pie” of governmental authority is divided up, and particularly how that division affects the Governor.
Governors are weakened Executives
We’ll start with features of many state governments which tend to weaken the Governor’s power. The biggest difference between the federal and state governments is the "Plural Executive", which exists in almost every state. In the national system, the President gets to nominate (and the Senate gets to confirm, or sign off on) all of the Cabinet officers. The Attorney General, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of State, etc. are all appointed by the President (with Senate approval, and that process has, for most of our 230 years of nationhood, given the President exactly what he wanted: it is pretty rare for the Senate to reject a President’s nomination). Being appointed by the President, the people who hold these offices naturally owe their loyalty to that President.
This is not generally true in state governments, where many Cabinet-level Executive officers are elected directly by the people (one of the outside sources, from CSG's Book of the States, lists how various Administrative officials are selected in the states). For example, 43 states have an elected Attorney General. 43 states have an elected Lieutenant Governor, although in 25 of those, the Governor and Lt Gov run together on a ticket; however, that does mean that in 18 states, the Lt Gov is elected on his or her own (I know one of the sources say that only five states don't have a Lt Gov; Tennessee and West Virginia have an office called "Lieutenant Governor", but the person holding that title is actually the Senate President, so they're both a State Senator AND the Lt. Governor). The State Treasurer is elected by the people in 38 states, and the Secretary of State is elected in 36 states. 35 states elect the State Auditor or State Comptroller (these offices do the same thing). A dozen states elect the Agriculture Commissioner, while 16 elect the Superintendent of Schools, Commissioner of Education, or members of the State Board of Education and/or the University Regents. Some lesser policy offices are elected in 11 or fewer states, such as the Public Service Commission (11, including the two states which still call that regulatory body the Railroad Commission), the Insurance Commissioner (eight), the Labor Commissioner (four), and one elects the Tax Commissioner (North Dakota). With all of these separately-elected officials, the major effect is that the Governor no longer has the authority to direct these Cabinet officers to emphasize his priorities and public policy preferences. In fact, in many cases (this is particular true of Attorney Generals), some of those separately-elected officials commonly look to distinguish themselves from the Governor, with hopes of running for that job later on.
Another factor which weakens Governors are term limits. As we found out in the previous unit, only about 15 states have term limits for state legislators. However, about two-thirds of the states (36, to be exact) impose term limits on the Governor (the most commonly-found limit is two four-year terms, although Virginia is even stricter, imposing a single four-year term). Vermont and New Hampshire, while not having limits, do require their Governors to run for re-election every two years (rather than every four), which can have the effect of distracting the Governor from governing because he/she has to constantly be thinking about re-election. In those 36 states which impose term limits, we find the “lame duck” effect: especially in the last two years of the last term, every other public official who deals with that Governor knows that that person is leaving office soon, and so they (the legislator, or mayor, or separately-elected Executive officer) may feel emboldened to try and exert more pressure on that Governor to give them what they want, knowing that the Governor won’t have to (or can’t) face the voters again at the next election.
Another factor which weakens Governors (as well as the President at the national level) is the need to subject their appointments to confirmation by one or both branches of the Legislature. The requirements for these vary widely from state to state; for example, in some states, many of the Governor’s policymaking appointments (the few that he has, since so many policy offices are elected), such as Commerce Commissioner, Labor Commissioner, Highway Commissioner, etc. aren’t even subject to Senate review. In Minnesota, by contrast, appointees of the Governor immediately take over their departments, but the Senate may recall them and deny their confirmation at some point (this happens, usually a few times during any given Governor’s tenure). However, some states put quite a bit of authority in the hands of the Legislature: in Virginia, for example, the State Senate, not the Governor, selects all state court judges (South Carolina does this also, but only for Supreme Court Justices). I mentioned at the beginning of the course that, up until about a decade ago, in South Carolina, the citizens elected the Adjutant General (the head of the state National Guard); in Vermont, the Legislature elects that person. Another related issue is the number of appointments which are filled by committees or organizations outside of the direct control of the Governor. A good example of this is in North Dakota: the members of the State Board of Higher Education are appointed by the Governor. However, when making that selection, the Governor has to choose from a list of three finalists recommended by a screening committee. That committee is made up of five members (Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, President Pro Tem of the State Senate, Speaker of the State House of Representatives, State Superintendent [who is elected directly by the people in North Dakota], and the President of the State Teachers Union), all of whom come to their positions by some other method than Governor’s appointment (although it’s possible that State Supreme Court Justices in North Dakota can be appointed by the Governor – we’ll talk more about that issue later on in the semester). Because the Governor doesn’t influence the membership of that selection committee, he doesn’t have any formal power over who that committee nominates to be on the Board of Higher Education. Something similar happens in Minnesota: MinnState (the board which supervises the state regional universities and the community colleges) is appointed directly by the Governor, but the Regents of the University of Minnesota (a separate system) are appointed jointly by the Governor and the State Senate – there have been a few cases in recent history where the Senate rejected a gubernatorial appointment to that board, and replaced him/her with a Senate-chosen candidate. Another example would be the Attorney General in Tennesssee: that person isn’t elected, but s/he’s also not appointed by the Governor. Instead, that officer is elected by the Justices of the State Supreme Court. In Maine, both the Attorney General and the Secretary of State are selected by the Legislature, not the Governor. We’re going to see some similar examples of this in a few weeks (in our unit on the Judiciary) when we talk about Judicial Nominating Commissions, which exist in a lot of states.
The final factor which limits the Governor’s (and actually the entire Executive branches’) authority is civil service reform. We’ll talk a lot more about this in the unit on bureaucracy, but it should be understood that in the 20th century, hiring of governmental employees shifted away from being based on the applicant’s political or partisan loyalties and more towards their professional abilities to do the job in question. This shift also led to much more permanent governmental administrative staff, where many of the people working in state government remain in their jobs for their entire careers, regardless of which party is in power. This fact has decreased the powers of many Governors and Executive branch officials in the last 50 years, since they now don’t have the authority to hire and fire whom they want to in order to carry out and administer their policy preferences.
So, why would anyone want this job?
However, despite these limits, Governors still have some natural advantages when trying to exert their powers. The most significant of these is what Teddy Roosevelt called the “bully pulpit” (although he was talking about the Presidency at the time, the same principle applies here). The Governor, even if he is only one of several statewide elected officials, still has the distinction of being THE Governor: that election and that office still attract more media and public attention than any other office. If the Governor calls a press conference on an issue, you can guarantee that most of the reporters who cover state political news as their beat will be there. If the Attorney General calls a press conference on the same issue, some will be there, but not necessarily all of them. If the Senate Committee Chairman of the panel that covers that issue calls his/her own press conference, it will likely be lightly attended. There is still a public prestige that goes with holding the office of Governor, and so an officeholder that can take advantage of that public spotlight is likely to have some success in getting out his/her message.
A structural advantage that many Governors also have is the ability to call special sessions of the Legislature. If the Legislature adjourns without taking up some particularly pressing issue, the only way for them to come back is if a “special session” (sometimes called an “extraordinary session”) is called. In most states, the Legislature can do this themselves, but it usually requires a petition signed and notarized by at least half, or in some case more than half, of the members of both chambers. This might sound easy, but think of the just the logistics of getting 40 or 50 or 60 people who are spread out all over the state to sign a single piece of paper and then file it with the proper authorities. It is much easier for the Governor to use his authority to call a special session, since that only requires one person to act. The advantage for the Governor then is that he/she, as part of the call of the session, also usually gets to determine the agenda (in other words, which issues are to be discussed). Most states allow the Legislature to add items to the agenda of special sessions, but there are usually stringent restrictions on this (either a 2/3, or ¾, or 3/5 vote of both chambers to add an item, or the added item can only be taken up once all of the Governor’s agenda has been finished).
Another structural advantage of Governors is the “line-item” veto. The President, in the national system, only has the authority to sign or veto an entire bill. Most Governors can go further than that: they can sign the bill, but they can also cross out, or veto, individual parts or sections of the bill. Some state Constitutions only allow the Governor to line-item-veto spending items in budget bills, whereas others allow the Governor to line-item-veto any part of any bill. If you think about it, this gives the Governor a major advantage, because the Legislature has less ability to add extra amendments or spending items to unrelated bills. In the federal system, this happens all the time: the President might declare a certain bill to be a priority, but when Congress sends him the final version, it has all sorts of unrelated amendment, riders, and special provisions that he might not favor. But, he doesn't the ability to strike those out: he can veto the whole bill, but that means that he doesn't get ANY of the things in that bill passed into law (Congressmen and US Senators know this, which is they do this somewhat frequently). In those 43 states where the Governor has at least some form of line-item veto, there's less of a chance of this happening, because the Governor might be able to cross out at least some of the items he doesn't like, and then sign the rest of the bill into law.
The final issue is that of budgetary authority. We’ll talk a lot more about this process at the end of the semester, when we talk about budgets and state government financing, but suffice it to say for the moment that in most states, the Governor proposes an initial budget, which the Legislature then modifies and changes into the final version. However, in many states, the Legislature is limited by how many changes they can make (for example, some states have a Constitutional provision that prohibits the Legislature from raising or lowering the Governor’s proposed budget by more than 5%). Also, the mere fact that the Governor has a full-time, year-round office (usually called the Office of Management and Budget [OMB]), whereas most Legislatures are part-time affairs, gives the Executive an advantage in expertise and familiarity when it comes to writing a budget.
Measuring the Powers of the Governor
On a separate handout on this site is a list of all 50 states, and where they stand on the Beyle scale of “Governor’s Institutional Powers”. Thad Beyle was a Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, and he’s been publishing these scales for years on his web site (which, unfortunately, seems to have been taken down since his retirement; he passed away in 2018). Beyle, and many of the scholars who think about this issue of how to "measure" the powers of Governors, looked at whether the Governor in any given state is subjected to term limits, how much budget authority he has, whether he has the line-item veto authority, and for what items, whether there are other statewide officials elected separately, and how many, whether the Governor’s appointments are subject to legislative approval, or to an independent board, and so on. Each of these items is scored on a scale of 1.0 to 5.0 (the higher the score, the more power the Governor has), and then added together and averaged. Therefore, the higher the score, the more powerful the Governor is in terms of the powers given to him either by the state’s Constitution or by state law. In some of these scales, Beyle (and other scholars who have expanded on his work) included the partisan political makeup of the Legislature, and whether the Governor’s party has an advantage, in his scale. There's an entire body of literature (published journal studies) on this issue of how to measure these things, which factors are most important, which factors might not mean as much, etc.
In 2006, I put together a “modified Beyle scale” (taking out the partisan balance of the Legislature, the percentage of the vote that the Governor received in his/her election, and how much time they have left before their term limit kicks in: in my mind, these are all measures that are tied to a particular politician in a particular moment in time). That document is also in your "Outside Readings" list.
Beyle did one assumption that I’m not that comfortable with: he assumed that any Governor elected on the same ticket with his/her Lieutenant Governor is somehow better off in terms of powers. In the South (remember, Beyle was at the Univ of North Carolina), this might be true, where the Lt Govs in Mississippi and Texas, for example, have a lot of authority over the Senate (rather than just being figurehead administrators, which is how most LG’s function in most State Senates). However, in many other places, I don’t see such a big advantage from having the Governor and Lt Gov run on the same ticket. Therefore, North Dakota, for example, scores much higher (3.9) on Beyle’s scale than it probably should, given that so many Executive officers (Ag Commissioner, Insurance Commissioner, Tax Commissioner, etc) are separately elected in that state. However, Minnesota (3.9) does belong where it is; in fact, I’ve seen scales done by other political scientists where Minnesota scores in the top five in terms of the Governor’s institutional strengths. Another assumption that Beyle made is regarding budgetary authority – he put a lot of emphasis on the unusual cases (like the Carolinas) where the Governors have to negotiate their own budgetary proposals with a commission before even proposing it to the Legislature. He didn't give any extra consideration to states (like Minnesota), where the Governor might have extraordinary budget powers (for example, both Minnesota’s and North Dakota’s Governors have temporary exigency power, which means that, in times of severe financial difficulties, the Governor can, by himself and without asking the Legislature for permission, lower any agency’s or department’s appropriations in order to temporarily balance the budget – you might have heard of Governor Pawlenty’s “allotment” of the state budget several years ago, or the more recent budget adjustments done by Governor Dalrymple in North Dakota. That term (“allotment”) is the technical term for this process. Some scholars take that into account; whereas others don't give it any weight. Thus, you should take all of these "scales" with a large grain of salt. However, it is good to remember that, because of the differences in the powers and authority given to the office within each state, that not all Governors are equal.