Alabama

Alabama has a large plural executive. Voters elect the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the State Auditor, the Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, and the members of the Public Service Commission — each independently. Because the Governor and Lieutenant Governor are elected separately rather than as a ticket, the two can come from different parties, and the Lieutenant Governor presides over the State Senate.

With so many officers elected in their own right, the Governor leads the executive branch but shares authority with a broad field of colleagues who answer to voters rather than to the Governor. The Governor appoints the heads of the executive departments that are not separately elected.

The Alabama Legislature is bicameral: a 35-seat State Senate and a 105-seat House of Representatives, with members of both chambers serving four-year terms and no term limits. It is a hybrid legislature — members report devoting more than two-thirds of a full-time job to the work, earning more than a true part-time citizen legislature but less than a full-time professional one.

What makes the Legislature distinctive is how much of its work is local. Because Alabama’s constitution sharply limits "home rule" — the power of counties and cities to govern their own affairs — many routine local matters can only be changed by an act of the state Legislature. As a result, a large share of the bills the Legislature passes are "local laws" affecting a single county or town, an unusual burden that flows directly from the constitution’s distrust of local self-government.

A bill is introduced, referred to committee, and — if it advances — voted on the floor of each chamber, with differences reconciled before final passage. The Governor can sign a bill, veto it, or let it become law, and holds a line-item veto over appropriations. Alabama’s veto, though, is weak: the Legislature can override it with a simple majority of each chamber — the same margin that passed the bill — so a veto is more a delay than a true block.

The defining feature is the constitution itself. Alabama’s 1901 constitution became the longest in the world, swollen with hundreds of amendments because so much policy — including local matters — was written into the document rather than left to statute. Many proposed amendments appear on the ballot for voter ratification, and some apply to only a single county. The charter was so unwieldy that it was officially recompiled and reorganized in 2022 (the "Constitution of Alabama of 2022") to make it readable, though its substance largely carried over.

The Governor appoints the heads of the non-elected agencies, proposes the budget, can call special sessions, holds emergency powers, wields a line-item veto, and holds only a narrow clemency power — chiefly reprieves and commutations in capital (death-sentence) cases — while a separate Board of Pardons and Paroles holds the power to grant paroles, pardons, and commutations in non-capital felony cases. But the office is on the weaker side: the veto can be overridden by a simple majority, and a broad slate of independently elected officials runs major parts of the executive branch.

The larger structural reality is the constitution. By writing so much detail and so many limits into a document that requires amendment to change, Alabama constrains what the Governor and the Legislature alike can do by ordinary action, pushing even modest local changes to a statewide constitutional process.

Alabama elects its judges in partisan elections at every level, including the state Supreme Court — one of the few states to choose its entire judiciary in party-labeled races. The Supreme Court of Alabama sits at the top, above the separate Court of Civil Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals (Alabama splits its intermediate appellate courts by subject) and the trial-level Circuit and District courts. The Governor fills mid-term vacancies by appointment, after which the appointee must stand in the next partisan election.