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 GeneralLand 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.

The website of the National Governors Association

might also be useful.

And of course the Wikipedia entry on Governor.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.