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THE NEW FACE OF STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER 21 OUTLINE
I. INTRODUCTION
A. State and local governments, or subnational governments, touch our lives every
day.
B. Since the early 1960s, the states have become revitalized in their institutions, their
personnel, and their role in the federal system.
C. With the weight of the philosophical argument about where policymaking power
should lie in the federal government swinging strongly toward the states for the past
30 years, the federal government has provided the states and localities with
increasing control over policymaking.
D. A second characteristic important to understanding subnational government in the
United States is diversity.
E. To understand this diversity among the states is to understand the politics and history
of the United States better. This also raises the important questions of why these
differences exist and what effects these differences have.
II. STATE CONSTITUTIONS
A. State constitutions are subordinate to the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the
United States, but they take precedence over state law.
B. States tend to have constitutions that are considerably longer than the U.S.
Constitution; most are burdened with details that attempt to spell out government
authority and limit government power.
C. States may amend their constitutions through a two-step process of proposal and
ratification.
1. The most common method is legislative proposal (permitted in all 50 states),
usually requiring approval by a vote of two-thirds of the legislature and then
submission to state voters who may ratify the proposal by a simple majority
vote.
2. A second method is proposal by a constitutional convention.
III. STATE ELECTIONS
A. Most top-level state policymakers are elected to office.
B. State elections used to be determined by national forces, but now they are more
visible and voters pay more attention to them.
C. Gubernatorial elections have been presidentialized, becoming more personalized and
resembling the mega-event of presidential elections.
1. Most gubernatorial elections are in non-presidential-election years.
2. Gubernatorial candidates must raise money and they do it by themselves rather
than rely on party organizations.
3. Gubernatorial elections have become less predictable over the past decade.
D. Races for state legislative offices are often decided based on forces beyond the
candidates’ control—the party identification of district voters and parties’ candidates
in the race for governor and president.
1. Recently these races have become more like the electoral races for Congress.
E. State legislatures have become more competitive and more partisan; there
is more divided government and many states have enacted term limits.
F. State-elected officials are more diverse than ever.
IV. GOVERNORS AND THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH
A. The job of governor.
1. Like the president, governors are expected to wear “many hats” in their jobs.
a. A governor directs a complex state government and the programs that it
administers.
b. Governors initiate much of the legislation that state legislatures will adopt.
c. They help manage conflict.
d. They must work with a number of other elected executive officials to
produce public policy.
2. The powers of governors are not always commensurate with expectations that
citizens have of them.
a. State constitutions often grant only weak powers to governors, frequently
dividing executive powers among many different administrative actors and
agencies. In addition, extensive civil service and merit-based employment
policies in most states further diminish the governor’s power.
b. Important formal powers include the line item veto and the executive
budget. Forty-two governors have the item veto, which allows them to veto
only parts of a bill, while allowing the rest of it to pass into law.
c. Governors supplement their formal powers with more “personal powers.”
d. Modernization in state governments has resulted in enhanced powers for
governors, but it usually has not resolved the problem of fragmentation of
executive power.
3. Other executive officers include:
a. Attorney general—the state’s legal officer, elected in 43 states.
b. Treasurer—the manager of the state’s bank accounts, elected in 38 states.
c. Secretary of state—in charge of elections and record-keeping, elected in 36
states.
d. Auditor—financial comptroller for the state, elected in 25 states.
e. In some states, agricultural commissioner, and commissioners for land,
labor, mines, and utilities, among others.
V. STATE LEGISLATURES
A. Between 1965 and 1985 many—but not all—state legislatures underwent a
metamorphosis into more full-time, professional bodies, with several operating like
state-level congresses.
1. State legislatures serve the same basic function in the states as Congress does
in the federal government.
a. Make basic laws.
b. Appropriate money.
c. Oversee activities of executive branch.
d. Serve constituencies.
B. Legislative professionalism reforms designed to improve the efficiency and
effectiveness of the legislature in doing these jobs focus on the capacity of the
legislature to perform its role with an expertise, seriousness, and effort comparable to
other actors.
1. Legislative sessions have been lengthened.
2. Legislative salaries have been increased.
3. Professional staff available to legislators has been increased.
4. Critics of legislative professionalism claim it leads to an overemphasis on
reelection, inflated campaign costs, and a lack of leadership.
5. States with professional legislatures tend to be those with large and heterogeneous
populations, and there is some evidence that professionalism leads to more
liberal welfare policy and more divided government.
C. We may now be seeing the beginning of a “deprofessionalizing” trend in some states,
as some harken back to the Jeffersonian ideal of the citizen legislature.
VI. STATE COURT SYSTEMS
A. Organization of state courts reflect two influences:
1. Model of organization established by federal courts.
2. Judicial preferences of each state’s citizens, as manifested in state constitutions
and statutes.
B. States have recently tried to organize a system in a way that parallels the federal
system.
1. State courts have one hundred times the number of trials and hear five times more
appeals than federal courts.
C. States have generally organized their courts into a three-tier system of trial courts,
intermediate courts of appeals, and a court of last resort.
1. Trial courts are organized on a local basis.
a. Judges often work in only one county and specialize in criminal, juvenile, or
civil litigation.
b. A single judge presides over each case.
c. Citizens are called upon to serve as jurors and members of grand jury panels.
d. It is at the trial court level that the facts of the case are considered, along
with due process guarantees required for the accused under the U.S.
Constitution.
2. Appeals may be made to an intermediate court of appeals in 37 states (in other
states, appeals go directly to the court of last resort).
a. Appeals courts are organized on a regional basis in which judges work
together in panels of three or more.
b. No witnesses are called before appellate courts.
c. Juries are not used in appellate courts; instead, judges read briefs and hear
arguments prepared by lawyers that address legal issues such as whether the
law was appropriately applied at the trial court level and whether due
process of law was followed.
d. “Appeals of right” involve cases that must be heard and decided by
appellate courts based upon merit (mandatory appeals).
3. All states have a court of last resort, usually called a supreme court, which is
the final appellate level in a state.
C. How judges are chosen varies across states.
1. Fifteen states select judges by appointment.
2. Eleven states select judges by partisan election ballot.
3. Nineteen states select judges by non-partisan ballots.
4. Sixteen states use a hybrid system of appointment and election known as the
Merit Plan, where the governor appoints the states’ judges from a list of persons
recommended by the state bar or a committee of jurists and other officials.
a. After a trial period, an election is held in which voters are asked whether the
judge should be retained in office.
b. There are repeated retention elections, but judges seldom lose.
VII. DIRECT DEMOCRACY
A. There are three main tools of direct democracy, a method of policymaking unique to
subnational governments.
1. Eighteen states permit popular initiative, a direct democracy method to amend
the constitution; proposed amendments may be placed directly before the voters
(bypassing the legislature) when sufficient signatures are obtained on petitions.
2. The constitutional initiative, a Progressive Era reform, is one of the tools of
direct democracy that sought to place increased power directly with the people.
3. Other Progressive Era reforms include the legislative initiative, the
referendum, and the recall.
B. Problems of direct democracy.
1. There is considerable debate over the desirability of rewriting and adding
constitutional provisions through citizen-initiated amendments. Proposed
constitutional amendments are often poorly drafted.
2. It is also unclear to what extent the initiative process empowers citizens or
merely gives new tools to better-financed, more privileged interest groups.
VIII. STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT RELATIONS
A. According to Dillon’s Rule, local governments have only those powers that are
explicitly given them by the states.
1. The basis for this rule is the United States Constitution.
2. Local governments can use informal political clout to make policy.
3. Formal powers are gained through state legislatures granting a local charter—an
organizational statement and grant of authority in which local governments are
said to operate under home rule.
IX. LOCAL GOVERNMENTS
A. Many Americans believe that public policy is best produced by governments that are
closest to the people, but the sheer number of local governments creates a complexity
that may actually hurt democracy.
1. The latest count from the U.S. Bureau of the Census revealed that there are
91,186 American governments.
2. Every U.S. citizen lives within the jurisdiction of a national government, a state
government, and perhaps 10 to 20 local governments.
B. Most city and school district governments are located in a county (called a parish in
Louisiana and a borough in Alaska), and county government is the administrative
arm of state government in local areas.
1. County governments keep records of births, deaths, and marriages; establish a
system of justice and law enforcement; maintain roads and bridges, collect taxes,
conduct voter registration and elections; and provide for public welfare and
education.
2. Rural residents rely on county governments for services more often than city
residents.
3. County governments usually consist of an elected county commission that
makes policy and a collection of “row officers” (such as a sheriff, prosecutor,
county clerk, assessor) who run county services; some urban counties now elect
a county executive or appoint a county administrator.
C. Township governments are found in 20 states.
1. Most have limited powers to assist with services in rural areas, but some
function much like city governments.
2. Townships can provide for public highways and local law enforcement, keep
records of vital statistics and tax collections, and administer elections.
3. Most do not have the power to pass local ordinances.
D. Municipalities (city governments) provide most basic local programs and services,
such as police and fire protection, street maintenance, solid waste collection, water
and sewer works, park and recreation services, and public planning.
1. Citizen satisfaction with the delivery of services varies greatly.
2. Many local communities in the United States were originally operated under the
“town meeting” form of direct democracy, where all voting-age adults in a
community gathered once a year to make public policy.
3. Since cities became too large for the town meeting style of governance, three
modern forms of municipal government have been used.
a. Mayor-council government - typically, local residents elect a mayor and a
city council.
(1) Strong mayor variety - city council makes public policy, while the
mayor and city bureaucracy who report to the mayor are responsible for policy implementation; strong mayors have the power to veto
actions of the city council.
(2) Weak mayor variety - most power is vested in the city council, which
directs the activities of the city bureaucracy; mayor serves as presiding
officer for city council meetings and ceremonial head of city
government.
(3) Most mayor-council cities follow the weak mayor form; small cities of
10,000 or fewer residents are most likely to have a weak mayor charter.
b. Council-manager government - voters choose a city council and may
choose a mayor, who often acts as both presiding officer and voting
member of the council; council is responsible for political or policy
decisions; implementation and administration of the council’s actions is
placed in the hands of an appointed city manager.
c. Commission government - voters elect a panel of city commissioners who
make public policy, but each is also elected as a commissioner of a
functional area of city government (such as public safety); bureaucrats report
to a single commissioner.
4. Most city council members and mayors are elected on a nonpartisan ballot.
a. Traditionally, city council members represented a district or ward of the
city—a practice that permitted the ward-based machine bosses to control
elections.
b. Reformers advocated at-large city elections, with all members of the city
council chosen by voters across the city.
(1) These at-large representatives could not create public policies to benefit only their own neighborhoods since they were elected by all of
the city’s voters.
(2) An unintended consequence of at-large representation is that minority
group members have had difficulty gaining election to the city council.
E. School districts are responsible for delivering education programs in 13,506 areas
of the country; most school systems are run as independent local governments.
1. In an independent school district, local voters within a geographically defined
area are responsible for their own public education system.
2. Within the guidelines of state policy and the parameters of state funding, locally
elected school boards and appointed administrators deliver education services.
3. One of the important debates in school policy today concerns how to pay for and