Reference no: EM133041609

1. Its hard to say if governors should share the same types and levels of formal power because they all are different. If we wanted everyting to be fair then they should. Governors have tremendous power over the legislative branch because they serve year-round and hold office alone. They also command wide press coverage by virtue of being the leading elected official in their state. Most governors have more power relative to their state legislatures than does the U.S. president relative to the U.S. Congress. State executive power flows from factors such as the propensity of state legislatures to meet for only part of the year and their resulting reliance for information on the governor and his/her administration, stronger formal tools, budget-cutting discretion, and the fact that state legislators typically hold down another job besides that of legislator. Reasons for strength can derive variously from personality, personal wealth, electoral mandate, party or interest group structure, state statute, or the formal powers of the office itself. "The ability to be strong can vary within a particular state; for example, a governor may have considerable power over the executive branch but little in working with the legislature. A governor may have little power in dealing with either of these but have a close relationship with the president, which confers some significant power in the intergovernmental arena and even in the state."

2. Governors are backed and assisted in carrying out their management and leadership responsibilities and objectives by department and agency heads, many of whom they have the authority to select. A majority of governors have the power to nominate judges to state courts. Governors should share the same type of power with each other, One governor having more power than the other would have the scale unbalance. Governors work together in some cases so one having more say and power than the other can cause problems between states that support each other with resources. Because governors serve year-round and hold office alone, they wield enormous power over the legislative branch. Governors who have served long enough in office to establish skills, competence, and relationships that they can call on in the future. The governor's veto and budget power both give him direct control over legislation. These powers ensure that the legislature and the governor collaborate on state legislation. Finally, the governor's appointment power aids him in his administrative duties. It means that the governor gets to pick who will lead the bureaucracy at the highest levels.

3. I believe that governors across the nation, should not be able to distribute proportionate formal power, as they are highly encouraged to do so not just by our politicians, but for those whom want things done a certain way, through planned initiatives. Since partisan politics has such a tremendous role in every citizens' life, every governor has the opportunity to collaborate and express their valid concerns appropriately to its people through the use of informal powers, as an objective duty in their legislative agenda. As a proponent for criminal justice, the most distinguished to me, from the rest of the formal powers, is that governors can reprimand crimes or lessen sentencing in their home state, but some states simply have stricter punishments for crimes. I would also argue that if a state is perceived as either weak or strong by its governor, its party members will notice their major flaws or strengths, and hopefully reside elsewhere. If we ought to correct or implement such minor issues at a national level, it's certainly a recipe for chaos and unpeaceful protesting. Some of the factors that cause the variance in the levels of formal gubernatorial power, is that governors devise a plan by applying inaugural ceremony or the state of the union address. Variations also exist in the governor's authority to veto bills or laws proposed by the legislature board.According to the textbook, the authors mention that, "Conversely, states in which the governor's formal powers are weak sometimes can have individuals in that office who completely dominate their state's politics. They are able to exploit the informal powers of their office, they manage to create personal powers, as opposed to relying on relatively weak institutional powers. We witness this most often occurring, when governors are granted the power to appoint their own teams to control and regulate state level government (e.g. cabinet secretaries), giving them utmost authority to set policy standards to their disposal," (Smith & Greenblatt, 2017, p. 247). The term bully pulpit, is acquired among governors, whom are heavily reliant on the public, to address budgetary needs or issues, which constrains their ability to exercise their will and even formal powers. I was also quite surprised to learn that New Jersey isn't a recall election state, which can have certain ramifications, not just for voter fraud, but unfair and inequitable representation. Fortunately, the articles of impeachment set a foundational boundary between governors and other executives taking ethical action in their roles, which I think is an absolute necessity.

4. In the U.S. every state is headed by a governor who has many formal and informal powers at their disposal. In New Jersey the governor's formal powers include the ability to appoint other leadership roles like state treasurer, attorney general, the secretary of state as well as appointing other leadership roles for the different departments. Some of the differences in the powers between governors revolve around their active roles in budget creation. In 18 states the governors carry the full responsibility for proposing a yearly or bi yearly budgets, 9 have the responsibility for the initial development of their states budgets. Another big difference between states would be whether the governors have line-item veto powers which affords the governor the ability to veto parts of a bill while signing into law the other parts. 44 states currently give their governors the power of line-item veto while 6 do not. I do not believe that there are very many issues associated with problems stemming from differing levels of formal gubernatorial power between states. States don't normally have any powers that go outside of their state so the strength and power given to one governor over a neighboring governor shouldnt matter. The only agreements that states can enter into between states would be interstate compact which is an agreement made between states where they agree to a certain set of standards or level of cooperation. These interstate compacts are generally formed between states of a specific region or to deal with a national matter. The differences in gubernatorial powers are based on the political culture that's within the states including their value of certain freedoms of the needs they hold more values to that they want addressed and the ability for the governors to be able to address it.

5. If a governor does not have enough formal power, they still have the opportunity to obtain the equivalent using informal powers. Informal powers alone can be enough to give a governor power to obtain and dominate office. I do believe that the levels of formal power are lacking for a governnor however properly organizing and developing new formal power for a governor could just result in a massive abuse of power due to the influence from informal power. Because of this, I think if formal power were to be increased and shared across all governors, there would need to be a massive shift in state government work culture and new legislation and policies to ensure power is not abused. In some cases, the need for an oversight commitee of some sort may be realized in order to prevent any abuse of power. This is the biggest potential problem for public citizens, individuals who work with the governor, and governors across all states. It could also lead to the informal formation of regional groups essentially splitting an already partisan country into even bigger pieces. State demographics and economics cause the biggest variance in levels of form gubernatorial power among the states with some governor powers being miles high compared to others who have very limited power and already titled a one term leader. Governors should share the same types and levels of formal power as long as there is proper guidelines established through the law.