California

California has a "plural executive": voters elect eight statewide officials independently, so the Governor does not control the whole branch and any of these officers can come from a different party. They are the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Controller (the state’s accountant and paymaster), the Treasurer (who manages the state’s money and debt), the Insurance Commissioner, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction (a nonpartisan office running K–12 education). Members of the Board of Equalization, a tax body, are also elected by district.

The Lieutenant Governor is elected separately from the Governor, not as a running mate, so the two can belong to different parties. The job is comparatively light day to day (presiding over the Senate, sitting on various boards) but becomes acting Governor whenever the Governor leaves the state.

Even so, by national standards the California Governor is strong: the office controls a vast executive bureaucracy of appointed agency secretaries and department directors, and commands the largest state budget in the country.

The California State Legislature is bicameral: a 40-seat State Senate (four-year terms) and an 80-seat State Assembly (two-year terms). Unlike most states, it is a full-time, professional body. Members are the highest-paid state legislators in the country, a base salary of $132,703 a year plus a daily allowance, and they are supported by large professional staffs.

Lawmakers are limited to 12 years of total service, which they may serve entirely in one chamber or split between the two. The Legislature works on a two-year cycle and meets close to year-round, so a bill introduced in the first year can carry into the second before it dies.

A bill is introduced, assigned to a policy committee, and, if it advances, heard by the fiscal committee when it spends money, before reaching the floor. After passing one chamber it repeats in the other, and differences are reconciled before a final vote. The Governor can sign a bill, veto it, or allow it to become law unsigned, and holds a line-item veto to cut or reduce individual spending items. A veto override needs two-thirds of each chamber, but in practice California almost never overrides a governor, so the veto is close to absolute.

What truly sets California apart is that the Legislature is not the only lawmaker. Through direct democracy, voters can enact statutes and even amend the constitution by initiative, block a law the Legislature passed by referendum, and remove an official mid-term by recall. Qualifying a measure takes a large number of valid petition signatures; once on the ballot, a simple majority is usually enough to make it law. Major California policy, tax limits, criminal sentencing, data privacy, has been written this way, sometimes over the Legislature’s objection.

The Governor appoints the leadership of the executive agencies, fills judicial and many other vacancies, proposes the state budget, can call special sessions, and exercises broad emergency powers. The line-item veto over appropriations and the near-impossibility of an override make the office unusually strong on fiscal matters, and the Governor holds the clemency power (with court sign-off required only for a twice-convicted felon).

The biggest external check on the Governor is not another official but the electorate itself: through the initiative and referendum, California voters can write law over the administration’s objection or repeal what it passes, so a governor must govern with one eye on the ballot box.

California uses appointment plus retention for its higher courts. The Governor appoints Supreme Court and Court of Appeal justices; the appointment is reviewed by the Commission on Judicial Appointments, and the justice then faces periodic up-or-down retention elections rather than running against an opponent. Trial-level Superior Court judges are chosen in nonpartisan elections. The Supreme Court sits at the top, above the Courts of Appeal and the Superior Courts that handle trials.