TRP S3E05: Systems Explained — What the Governor Can Actually Control

A governor is powerful, but they are not all powerful.

They can propose budgets.

They can appoint leaders, especially inside the executive branch.

Remember, we have the three branches of government so that those leaders can oversee a lot of the state agencies.

They can sign or veto legislation.

They can use executive authority in certain situations like declaring an emergency, but they can't simply create a law alone.

So the easiest mistake that people make is thinking that a governor is like a state's CEO or chief executive officer.

In reality, the government or excuse me, the governor leads inside of a structure that has really built in limits and guardrails.

They are guiding government.

as they're trying to guide what they want done and their priorities.

But if they don't have a legislature that is in agreement with them, they have significantly less authority and pull.

So that's your short version.

For those of you that want to stick around, we'll talk about it a little bit more in depth.

So the governor can propose a state budget, but The legislature is the one that approves it.

So vice versa, let's say that you have a Democrat governor, Republican House and Senate for the state.

Then the Republican budget gets passed, gets sent to the governor.

That governor can veto it.

But usually there's a veto override.

So if they can get enough people on board to get enough votes out of the legislature, they can override that veto and pass the budget anyway.

Conversely, if the...

Let's change it up.

Now it's a Republican governor and a Democrat Senate and House.

So the legislature does not want to give the Republican governor what he wants.

OK, they they're working on their own budget.

But now let's say they don't have enough to override the veto.