Maryland

Maryland elects a compact slate of statewide officials. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor run as a single ticket (and so share a party), and voters separately elect the Attorney General and the Comptroller, the state’s independently elected tax collector and chief fiscal officer. Maryland does not popularly elect a secretary of state or treasurer, the Secretary of State is appointed by the Governor, and the Treasurer is elected by the General Assembly.

A defining institution is the Board of Public Works: just three members, the Governor, the Comptroller, and the Treasurer, who together approve a large share of state spending, including major contracts, construction, and land transactions. Concentrating so much fiscal oversight in a three-person board is unusual, and it gives the Governor, who chairs it, an outsized hand in how money is actually spent. The Governor also appoints the cabinet secretaries who run the executive departments.

The Maryland General Assembly is bicameral: a 47-seat State Senate and a 141-seat House of Delegates, with members of both chambers serving four-year terms, unusual in that even the lower house runs on four-year cycles rather than two. There are no term limits, and pay is $55,526 a year plus a per diem, it is a hybrid legislature, where members spend more than two-thirds of a full-time job on the role yet most still keep outside careers.

The calendar is the key constraint: the constitution limits the regular session to 90 consecutive calendar days, convening each January. Everything, including the budget, has to be done inside that three-month window unless the Governor calls a special session.

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 a veto override takes three-fifths of each chamber.

Where Maryland stands apart is the budget. Under its "executive budget" system, the Governor drafts the state budget and the General Assembly can only cut or strike items, it generally cannot add spending or move money to its own priorities the way most legislatures can. That makes the Maryland governor one of the most powerful in the country over state finances. Maryland has no citizen initiative for statutes, but it does have a notable popular check: the referendum, which lets voters petition to put a law the Legislature passed on the ballot for approval or repeal.

The Maryland governorship is among the strongest in the nation, and the budget is the reason. The Governor not only proposes the budget but largely controls its shape, since the Legislature can subtract from it but not add, and then chairs the Board of Public Works that signs off on much of the actual spending. Add the usual appointment power over the cabinet, a line-item veto, special sessions, emergency powers, and the clemency power, and the office commands state government to an unusual degree.

The main checks are the independently elected Attorney General and Comptroller (the latter a fellow member of the Board of Public Works), the three-fifths legislative override, and the people’s referendum power to challenge enacted laws at the ballot box.

Maryland uses appointment plus retention for its appellate courts. The Governor appoints judges from a nominating commission’s slate, the Senate confirms, and the judges later face periodic up-or-down retention votes. Maryland recently renamed its courts to match the rest of the country: the high court, long called the Court of Appeals, is now the Supreme Court of Maryland, and the intermediate court is the Appellate Court of Maryland. Below them sit the trial-level Circuit and District courts.