Governors, just like American presidents, face a singular disadvantage when it comes to lawmaking. Though the public may look to governors to lead their states, credit them with any successes, and ...hold them accountable for most failures, state constitutions strip governors of any direct power to craft legislation. Legislators in this country hold a monopoly over the power to introduce, amend, and pass bills, giving them the ability to write laws and then present them as take-it-or-leave-it offers to America's chief executives. A governor's only formal legislative power is a reactive one – the ability to veto or sign bills that are passed by the other branch – and comes at the end of the lawmaking process.The dynamics of this relationship can be seen in the logistics of the annual rituals that bring the branches together. When presidents lay out legislative agendas in their State of the Union addresses, they head down Pennsylvania Avenue to do so from the speaker's rostrum before a joint session of Congress. Likewise, governors typically deliver their State of the State speeches to lawmakers in their respective legislatures' lower houses. Governors recognize who the home team is when it comes to playing the legislative game and know that their ability to shape policy depends crucially on the actions of the men and women who serve in the legislative branch. With respect to many of the formal prerogatives of lawmaking, each state's chief executive stands behind even the most junior rank-and-file legislator.
Legislators would say I really need funding for a school in my district. I'd say I absolutely understand it, I know that is important and want to be helpful to you, and as soon as I see my smart ...growth bill pass, I will turn my full attention to the supplemental budget.– Maryland governor Parris Glendening, describing t he dynamic that allowed him to leverage his power to line-item capital budget items into support f or his policy programThere are no quid pro quos. Governors just line out things that they want to line out.– Bill Hauck, deputy chief of staff t o California governor Pete Wilson and chief of staff t o assembly s peakers Willie Brown and Bob Moretti, describing t he item veto as simply a budget-trimming toolIn 1994, Newt Gingrich and his Republican revolutionaries became strange bedfellows with President Bill Clinton, making the line-item veto the first pledged reform in the “Contract with America.” Proponents viewed this reform, which conveys to chief executives the power to nullify individual expenditures in appropriations bills without having to reject the entire bill, as a way to eliminate wasteful spending in the federal budget and “restore fiscal responsibility to an out of control Congress.” Indeed, after he had been granted and exercised this new executive power, President Clinton observed, “I think that having it has made it much easier to control s pending.” Veteran legislative leaders, who felt a stake in defending congressional control over the nation's purse, objected.
Gubernatorial Success Kousser, Thad; Phillips, Justin H.
The Power of American Governors,
09/2012
Book Chapter
Many of the chief executives in our study proposed headline-grabbing education reforms in their State of the State addresses. These governors fought hard to move their reforms through the ...legislature, but not all emerged victorious. Democrat Roy Barnes, for instance, called on Georgia lawmakers to end the practice of “social promotion” in public schools by expanding use of high-stakes standardized testing. Nearly two months to the day after announcing his proposal, Gov. Barnes was seated at a teacher's desk in front of a classroom full of third graders, signing his bill into law. The governor's rapid success occurred despite strong opposition from black lawmakers and civil rights leaders, who feared that minority students would be disproportionately hurt. Republican governor Robert Ehrlich of Maryland also made public education a centerpiece of his State of the State, though he pursued his goals through the budget. Ehrlich called on lawmakers to make record financial investments in the state's primary and secondary schools as well as its colleges and universities. Ultimately, the governor secured much of what he originally asked for, even though he confronted a legislature controlled overwhelmingly by the opposition party. Indeed, his large education investments were initially dismissed by Democratic lawmakers, including an Appropriations Committee member who responded to the governor's proposal by saying, “He's spending money like a drunken sailor, and I apologize to self-respecting drunken sailors out there.”
How powerful are governors in negotiations over the size of the state budget? Can chief executives stand up to legislatures when it comes to deciding how much government will tax and spend? A lengthy ...literature in state politics suggests that the answer to this question is no. Most quantitative studies find that governors are reduced to little more than bystanders when it comes to determining the overall size of the state public sector.Early empirical work found little to no relationship between the size of the budget and the partisanship of either the governor or the legislature, concluding that elected officials are neutral translators of economic and demographic conditions into policy (Dawson and Robinson 1963; Dye 1966; Hofferbert 1966; Winters 1976). Although more recent work has uncovered a link between party control and state budgeting, this link is conditioned by the types of issues over which the parties divide (Dye 1984; Brown 1995), the way that party control is measured (Smith 1997), and the set of state political institutions (Phillips 2008). Importantly, it only appears that it is the legislature's party that matters. State houses that are controlled by Democrats spend more, whereas Republican-run legislatures are more frugal and conservative. Yet, in all these studies, the party of the governor seems to be irrelevant to models predicting the size of state government. Can a Gov. Mitt Romney be no different than a Gov. Howard Dean? Can capturing the biggest prize in state politics really be irrelevant when it comes to setting the size of state government?
If states are to survive and prosper in our system, they need the tools of effective government. Proposition 1 -a is a giant step toward that goal. California can lead the way.– B allot argument in ...favor of California's Proposition 1 -aIn 1966, California voters handily ratified a ballot measure that not only transformed their state's legislature from a citizen house into a professional body but also precipitated a decade of legislative modernization across the country. For California lawmakers, the passage of Proposition 1-a brought about a dramatic lengthening of legislative sessions, an increase in their salary, and the expansion of the legislature's expert staff. These reforms, part of a package proposed by the state's blue-ribbon Constitutional Revision Commission, were not intended merely to make life better for lawmakers. The proponents of the reform saw that it could transform state government more fundamentally. They understood that Proposition 1-a, by enhancing the effectiveness of the legislature, could alter the balance of power between the branches of government. Jesse Unruh, the speaker of the California Assembly and leader of the reform effort, argued that professionalization was needed because it would strengthen the hand of the legislature when it comes to dealing with the governor (Squire 1992).On the eve of professionalization, however, not everyone was in agreement with Speaker Unruh. The information guide mailed to California voters prior to the 1966 election contained some surprising predictions at odds with our intuition about the effects of professionalization.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco, whose political standing nose-dived amid her administration's response to Hurricane Katrina, emerged Tuesday from a 17 -day special legislative session with a string of ...victories on the state budget, business tax breaks, a state wide building code, and a partial takeover of the troubled New Orleans public schools.– The Times-Picayune, November 23, 2005Despite an all time-low approval rating and a major scandal exploding around him, Republican Gov. Bob Taft appears on the verge of scoring the biggest public policy victory of his nearly 6 and 1/2 years in office.– Dayton Daily News, June 3, 2005When Louisiana's governor Kathleen Blanco and Ohio's governor Bob Taft won major legislative victories in the face of plummeting polls, it surprised the statehouse journalists who covered them. And, well, it should have. The link between popularity and legislative success is an important part of the lore of American politics, buttressed by systematic studies at the national level and frequent observations in states. Essential to the notion of political capital is the understanding that chief executives can spend it by translating strong public approval into policy persuasion. The converse should also be true: unpopular leaders should be hamstrung by their poll numbers, unable to convince legislators to past he agendas they propose.
I have suffered a series of problems with regard to the Administration bills which I have drafted. The problems have arisen, I believe, primarily because the legislators selected to sponsor the bills ...have not been sufficiently informed about the contents of the bills. For instance, Senator Dunn sponsored and introduced the Urban Aid bill without realizing that Elizabeth was the only city which would not receive an increase. Assemblyman Pellechia sponsored and introduced the Uniform State Building Code without knowing that it would preclude his beloved plumbing code. I think we can do something to prevent the embarrassment and hard feelings which result from such situations.– internal memo from Ark Winkler, Assistant counsel to New Jersey governor Brendan Byrne, March 26, 1974Members of the Legislature have requested that they be forewarned, if possible, of announcement pertaining to major departmental expenditures, new projects, etc…that affect their respective districts.– Memo from Jeff Ketterson, secretary to the cabinet, administration of Gov. Brendan Byrne, February 1, 1974Internal memos from the first year of New Jersey governor Brendan T. Byrne's administrations how that governors can and do make mistakes, complicating the efforts of observers and scholars to predict executive productivity. The almost comical mistakes noted in the Byrne memos failing to inform key sponsors of potentially embarrassing details contained in the governor's bills and failing to notify lawmakers prior to major budgetary announcements affecting t heir districts – reveal a new governor and his administration struggling to master the informal and often perplexing levers of executive power.
Existing analyses in the political science literature find that the partisan control of state government is, at best, a weak and conditional predictor of public policy outcomes. This dissertation ...explores whether the absence of strong party effects among the U.S. states can be explained, at least in part, by features of the context or environment in which state lawmaking occurs. Specifically, I consider how interjurisdictional competition over mobile economic resources, direct democracy institutions (especially the citizen initiative), and stringent anti-deficit rules or balanced budget requirements may constrain the policy choices of governors and legislative majorities. I test for the effects of these features by developing and estimating several econometric models of the determinants of annual changes in state tax policy. These models are estimated using an original data set of the tax policy choices made by elected officials over a fourteen-year period, fiscal years 1988 through 2001. Overall, I find that while the partisan control of state government does have policy implications, the ability of elected officials to move public policy in their preferred direction is ultimately mitigated by each of the characteristics of the state lawmaking environment considered here.
