Team of Rivals or Team Players: The Limits of Gubernatorial Control in Divided State Executive Branches
Abstract:
Recent scholarship has found that the partisan control of state governors' offices influences the ideological direction of state policy. This literature, however, often ignores a key characteristic of state politics: the plural executive. In a majority of states, key executive branch posts are independently elected rather than appointed by the governor. As a result, governors must often contend with state executives of the opposing political party when implementing their policy agenda. In this paper, I examine how the policy effects of state governors are conditioned by the party of elected state executives. Coupling existing measures of state policy liberalism with data on the partisan control of state attorneys general, secretaries of state, and state treasurers from 1974 to 2019, I estimate a series of panel models to assess how these executives influence gubernatorial control. I find that while Democratic and Republican governors do lead to liberal and conservative policy change, respectively, this policy effect among Democrats is conditioned on whether or not the state attorney general is a fellow Democrat. When the attorney general is a Republican, Democratic governors are limited in their ability to bring about liberal policy change. This dynamic is particularly salient in states with part-time legislatures, where the attorney general plays a more central role in providing a check on the governor. There is no such relationship, however, secretaries of state or state treasurers, each of whom have little to no effect on state policy liberalism.
Link to working paper: team_of_rivals_or_team_players___100_.pdf
Recent scholarship has found that the partisan control of state governors' offices influences the ideological direction of state policy. This literature, however, often ignores a key characteristic of state politics: the plural executive. In a majority of states, key executive branch posts are independently elected rather than appointed by the governor. As a result, governors must often contend with state executives of the opposing political party when implementing their policy agenda. In this paper, I examine how the policy effects of state governors are conditioned by the party of elected state executives. Coupling existing measures of state policy liberalism with data on the partisan control of state attorneys general, secretaries of state, and state treasurers from 1974 to 2019, I estimate a series of panel models to assess how these executives influence gubernatorial control. I find that while Democratic and Republican governors do lead to liberal and conservative policy change, respectively, this policy effect among Democrats is conditioned on whether or not the state attorney general is a fellow Democrat. When the attorney general is a Republican, Democratic governors are limited in their ability to bring about liberal policy change. This dynamic is particularly salient in states with part-time legislatures, where the attorney general plays a more central role in providing a check on the governor. There is no such relationship, however, secretaries of state or state treasurers, each of whom have little to no effect on state policy liberalism.
Link to working paper: team_of_rivals_or_team_players___100_.pdf