New Jersey

New Jersey concentrates executive power more than almost any other state. Until 2010 the Governor was literally the only official elected statewide, there was no lieutenant governor, no separately elected attorney general, treasurer, or secretary of state. A 2006 amendment created a Lieutenant Governor, who since 2010 runs on a single ticket with the Governor and so always shares the Governor’s party.

Everything else in the executive branch is appointed by the Governor: the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the cabinet, and, unusually, the county prosecutors who handle criminal cases across the state. There is no roster of independently elected rivals to check the Governor from inside the executive branch, which is the root of the office’s exceptional strength.

The result is that, by national standards, the New Jersey Governor controls the executive branch almost completely.

The New Jersey Legislature is bicameral: a 40-seat State Senate and an 80-seat General Assembly (two Assembly members per Senate district). Assembly members serve two-year terms. Senators serve on an unusual staggered "2-4-4" cycle, two four-year terms and one two-year term each decade, so that every senator faces voters at least once after each round of redistricting.

There are no term limits. Pay is a flat $49,000 a year with no per diem, placing the body between a part-time citizen legislature and a full-time professional one; many members keep outside careers, but the workload runs close to year-round on a two-year session cycle. New Jersey is also one of only five states (Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and New Jersey) that hold their gubernatorial elections in odd-numbered years, separate from federal contests; it shares its specific timing, the year after a presidential election, only with Virginia.

A bill is introduced, referred to committee, and, if it advances, voted on the floor of each chamber, with differences reconciled before final passage. Where New Jersey stands out is the Governor’s veto power, which is unusually deep. Beyond a straight veto and a line-item veto on appropriations, the Governor has a "conditional veto": the Governor can return a bill with specific recommended changes, and the Legislature can enact the bill as the Governor rewrote it by a simple majority. Combined with an absolute veto that takes two-thirds of each chamber to override, this lets the Governor shape the substance of legislation, not just block it.

New Jersey has no citizen initiative or referendum for ordinary statutes, voters cannot place laws on the ballot themselves. Proposed amendments to the state constitution, however, are referred by the Legislature to the voters for ratification, so constitutional change does go to a public vote.

This is the heart of what makes New Jersey distinctive. The Governor appoints essentially the entire executive and judicial branches, cabinet officers, the Attorney General, judges, and county prosecutors, proposes the budget, holds line-item and conditional vetoes, can call special sessions, and wields broad emergency powers. With no independently elected executive rivals, few governors in America command their state government so fully.

The main internal brake is a Senate tradition called "senatorial courtesy," under which the Senate may decline to act on an appointee from a particular county unless that county’s senators consent, a quiet but real check on the Governor’s vast appointment power. The Governor also holds the clemency power. Otherwise, the principal limits are the Legislature’s budget role and the two-thirds veto override.

New Jersey’s judges are appointed, not elected. The Governor nominates them and the State Senate confirms; a judge first serves a seven-year term and, if reappointed, gains tenure until the mandatory retirement age of 70. The Supreme Court of New Jersey sits at the top, above the Superior Court (which includes the Appellate Division and the trial courts). The appoint-and-tenure model, paired with the state’s long tradition of a highly regarded Supreme Court, gives the judiciary strong independence despite the Governor’s role in selecting it.