GOVT 2306 The State and Local Executive

In this section we briefly look at the executive branch and get comfortable with its structure and purpose. At its simplest, the executive branch is responsible for the execution of the laws and the administration of government.

The laws passed by the legislature are then implemented – with some degree of discretion – by the executive branch. How they implement the law is subject to adjudication by the judiciary, but that’s the next section.

Since the goal of the executive is to implement the laws, the design of the executive branch is such that it can most effectively do so. The goal is to provide efficiency in the execution of the laws. There’s a problem with this however.

On the national level, the executive branch is unitary, meaning that there is one person on top of it. This is to ensure efficiency in the execution of laws, but it can also allow for the arbitrary use of power.

The US Constitution states that the national executive power is vested in a president, who is elected along with a vice president. Alexander Hamilton argued that this was to ensure “energy” in the executive.

But the muscle the executive possesses in order to implement the law (they can get away with killing people after all) allows for abuse. Many state governments – including Texas’ – have altered the design of the executive branch in order to compensate for this.

Rather than being unitary – with one person on top – they are plural. Many different people have unique executive positions, and none has any real power over the other.

Instead of one governor with the ability to appoint people to different positions, a governor is elected to office along with a handful of other positions.

In Texas these include Lieutenant Governor Attorney General Comptroller General Land Commissioner Agriculture Commissioner

We will spend time in future classes on each of these positions. For now its simply important to note that executive power in Texas – and many other states – is divided in order to ensure that no one person has control over the entire executive branch.

As with the legislative and judicial branches, the Texas executive is designed to limit power, not enhance it.

As you should remember from past sections, doing so makes governing more inefficient and can make it more difficult for problems to be addressed. There’s your dilemma.

A bit more on governors

You might want to click through the website of Rutgers University’s Center on the American Governor. Center on the American Governor

The website of the National Governors Association might also be useful. And of course the Wikipedia entry on Governor.National Governors AssociationGovernor

The governor can be viewed as being the chief administrator, with special duties to play regarding bill making and the budget as well as overseeing agencies that are not under the jurisdiction of any of the other executive officials.

Governors also – like in Texas – have appointment power over agencies, which allows them influence over how laws are implemented in the state. Which some argue is how it should be, since it allows the electorate the ability to influence the executive through the democratic process.

We’ll look more thoroughly at the at the Texas Governor’s office in a later section.

Local Executives

In previous sections we discussed some of the executive officials on the local level. In cities, the top executive official is the mayor, a position that may or may not have much power, depending on the form of city government.

As we know from a previous section, most large cities have strong-mayor forms of government. In these systems, mayors have a great deal of strength. They can set the city council’s agenda, create budgets and directly oversee the actions of executive agencies.

Click here for The United States Conference of Mayors. For a look at the mayors of world cities click on: City Mayors.The United States Conference of MayorsCity Mayors

Sometimes the actual day to day workings of city government is given to a city manager who is responsible to the mayor and city council for how they perform their jobs.

A large number of additional executive positions are elected on the city and county level. We covered a large number of county positions in a previous section.

Many more will be considered as we look at different public policy areas in future sections.

The Bureaucracy

All of the positions referred to previously – upper level executive positions – are elected, which means they are primarily political. The activities they engage in are driven by the preferences of the electorate.

This can lead to a problem however. Political influence over how policies are implemented can become corrupt. In addition, there is little guarantee that laws will be implemented in a professional manner.

This was called patronage, also called the spoils system. To the victor go the spoils.patronagespoils system

This is especially problematic for bureaucracies at the local level. Vested interests attempt to ensure that they have influence on how laws are implemented. Again, more on this in a later section. This helps explains a lot of public policy decisions.

For that reason, over time, lower level executive officials have been removed from the direct control of the elected members of the executive branch and given to civil service that is intended to be both professional and removed from political pressure.

This is the bureaucracy. They can also be referred to as the civil service and public administration.bureaucracy civil servicepublic administration

Members of the bureaucracy are the employees of government. These are the people one is likely to think of as being “the government.”

A bureaucracy can be defined as an professional, hierarchical administrative organization with defined tasks that are accomplished according to a specific routine.

Otherwise known as red tape. But the purpose is to ensure that there is a non-arbitrary way to implement the laws passed by the legislature.

There is an inevitable tension between the bureaucracy and elected executive officials.

Think of it this way, the upper level executive officials tend to rotate in office. Members of the bureaucracy consider their positions t be their careers. This is what they are committed to do. This can mean people who are teachers, police officers, firemen, etc...

The tension is especially acute between top level executive officials and street-level bureaucrats, which are the people who actually physically implement the laws, and often seek to do so with some degree of discretion.street-level bureaucrats

People at the top of the pyramid, and those at the bottom tend to have different ways to look at social problems. This can result in tension over how laws are implemented.

Some history

The governments in the original colonies had governors who were initially elected (indirectly) by the eligible electorate in the colonies, but were appointed directly by the crown later in the colonial period.governments in the original colonies

This was one of the grievances lodged against the crown. By appointing governors directly, the crown was usurping the colonists ability to control executive powers.