Minnesota

Minnesota has a plural executive of statewide elected officials: the Governor and Lieutenant Governor (who run together as a single ticket and share a party), the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the State Auditor, with the latter three elected independently. Because they run on their own, those officers answer to voters rather than the Governor.

A distinctive feature is partisan: Minnesota’s major center-left party is not called the Democratic Party but the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party, or DFL, the result of a 1944 merger between the state Democrats and the populist Farmer-Labor party. No other state has a major party by that name, so statewide officials and legislators here are elected as Republicans or as members of the DFL. The Governor appoints the heads of the executive agencies that aren’t separately elected.

The Minnesota Legislature is bicameral: a 67-seat Senate (four-year terms) and a 134-seat House of Representatives (two-year terms). It is a hybrid body that runs close to full-time, with pay of $51,750 a year plus a per diem, and there are no term limits. The constitution caps the Legislature at 120 legislative days within each two-year biennium, which it typically spreads across annual sessions.

Its most striking historical feature is how members used to be elected. From 1913 to 1973 Minnesota legislators ran on nonpartisan ballots, no party labels appeared next to their names, making it one of the few states ever to elect a partisan-functioning legislature through officially nonpartisan elections. The Legislature returned to party labels in the 1970s, but the long nonpartisan era left a lasting mark on the state’s political culture.

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; a veto override takes two-thirds of each chamber.

Minnesota is notable for what it does not have: the state has no statewide citizen initiative or referendum, so voters cannot place statutes or constitutional amendments on the ballot themselves. Proposed constitutional amendments are referred to voters only by the Legislature, and an unusual counting rule applies: a blank ballot on an amendment counts as a "no," so an amendment must win a majority of everyone voting in the election, not just those voting on the question. Combined with the state’s famously high turnout, that sets a high bar for changing the constitution.

The Governor appoints the heads of the non-elected agencies, proposes the budget, can call special sessions, holds broad emergency powers, and wields a line-item veto, which gives the office real leverage over spending. The Governor also holds the clemency power, though in Minnesota pardons run through a Board of Pardons made up of the Governor, the Attorney General, and the Chief Justice; since 2023, clemency requires the votes of two of the three members, one of whom must be the Governor.

With no term limits, a governor can build influence over a long tenure. The main internal checks are the independently elected Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Auditor, and a Legislature that runs close to full-time and can override vetoes with two-thirds majorities.

Minnesota elects its judges in nonpartisan elections at every level, a fitting echo of the state’s long nonpartisan-ballot tradition. In practice most judges first reach the bench by gubernatorial appointment to fill a vacancy and then run to keep the seat, but the elections themselves carry no party labels. The Supreme Court of Minnesota sits at the top, above the Court of Appeals and the trial-level District Courts.