Massachusetts

Massachusetts elects six statewide officials, and adds a body found in almost no other state. Voters choose the Governor and Lieutenant Governor (who run as a single ticket in the general election), the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Commonwealth, the Treasurer and Receiver-General, and the State Auditor, each of the latter four independently.

The distinctive institution is the Governor’s Council, sometimes called the Executive Council: eight members elected from districts, plus the Lieutenant Governor, who must approve many of the Governor’s most important acts, judicial nominations, pardons and commutations, and certain appointments and payments from the treasury. This colonial-era check means the Governor cannot seat a judge or grant clemency alone. Apart from the elected officers, the Governor appoints the cabinet secretaries and agency heads who run the rest of the executive branch.

The Legislature is officially the "General Court of the Commonwealth," a name carried over from colonial times. It is bicameral and large: a 40-seat State Senate and a 160-seat House of Representatives, all serving two-year terms with no term limits. It is a full-time, professional body, with a base salary of about $82,044 a year (set constitutionally and adjusted each biennium by the Governor to track the state median household income) plus leadership and committee stipends and substantial staff; members receive no per diem.

The General Court works on a two-year cycle and meets close to year-round. As the legislature of the Commonwealth that helped originate American constitutional government, it operates under rules and traditions among the oldest in the country.

A bill is introduced, referred to a joint committee (Massachusetts is unusual in routing most bills through committees staffed by both chambers), 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, return it with amendments, or use a line-item veto on appropriations; the General Court can override with a two-thirds vote of each chamber.

Massachusetts has a robust citizen ballot process. Voters can enact statutes by initiative and propose constitutional amendments, and can challenge a law by referendum, but the state uses an "indirect" model: an initiative petition goes to the General Court first, and only if the Legislature does not pass it does the measure proceed to the ballot after gathering additional signatures. Constitutional amendments by initiative must also clear two successive joint sessions of the Legislature before reaching voters.

The Massachusetts governor is strong on paper, appointing the cabinet, proposing the budget, calling special sessions, holding emergency powers, and wielding a line-item veto, but operates with a distinctive colonial-era brake. The elected Governor’s Council must confirm the Governor’s judicial nominees and approve clemency, so the Governor can neither seat a judge nor grant a pardon or commutation without the Council’s assent. That makes clemency here a genuinely shared power, unlike the solo clemency most governors hold.

The Governor also shares the executive branch with the independently elected Attorney General, Treasurer, Auditor, and Secretary of the Commonwealth, and faces a heavily Democratic, full-time Legislature that can override vetoes with two-thirds majorities.

Massachusetts does not elect its judges at all. The Governor nominates them, the Governor’s Council confirms, and once seated judges serve to a mandatory retirement age of 70 rather than facing election, one of the most insulated judiciaries in the country. The Supreme Judicial Court, established in 1692 and the oldest appellate court in continuous operation in the Western Hemisphere, sits at the top, above the Appeals Court and the Trial Court departments.