New Mexico

New Mexico has a plural executive of statewide elected officials: the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, the State Auditor, and the Commissioner of Public Lands. The Governor and Lieutenant Governor are nominated separately but run together as a single ticket in the general election, so they share a party; the others are elected independently.

The Commissioner of Public Lands is a notable office: an elected official who manages millions of acres of state trust land and the revenue it generates for schools and other beneficiaries — a post only a handful of states elect. The Governor appoints the heads of the executive agencies that aren’t separately elected and leads the rest of the bureaucracy.

The New Mexico Legislature is bicameral: a 42-seat State Senate (four-year terms) and a 70-seat House of Representatives (two-year terms), with no term limits. Its defining feature is pay: New Mexico is the only state that pays its legislators no salary at all. Members receive a daily expense allowance and mileage while serving, but no wage — the purest "citizen legislature" arrangement in the country, which tends to limit who can afford to serve.

The session calendar is short and rigidly fixed by the constitution: a 60-day session in odd-numbered years, when any subject may be considered, and a 30-day session in even years limited mainly to budget and revenue matters plus anything the Governor specifically places on the agenda. Everything must be finished within those windows.

A bill is introduced, referred to committee, and — if it advances — voted on the floor of each chamber within the 60- or 30-day session, with differences reconciled before final passage. In the short even-year session, non-budget bills can generally be taken up only if the Governor adds them to the call, which gives the Governor unusual control over the agenda every other year.

The Governor can sign a bill, veto it, or let it become law, and holds a partial veto on appropriations that is among the broadest in the country — able to strike portions of spending bills, not just whole items. A veto override takes two-thirds of each chamber, but because the sessions are so short and end firmly, the Legislature often has no chance to override until it next convenes. New Mexico has no general citizen initiative for statutes; constitutional amendments are referred to voters by the Legislature, and some provisions protecting the rights of Hispanic and Native residents require especially high approval thresholds to change.

New Mexico’s governor is comparatively strong. The office appoints the heads of the non-elected agencies, proposes the budget, can call special sessions, holds emergency powers, holds the clemency power, and — distinctively — controls the agenda of the short even-year session by deciding which non-budget bills may be considered. The broad partial veto adds further leverage over spending.

The main internal checks are the independently elected Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Auditor, and Land Commissioner, and the two-thirds legislative override. The short, unpaid sessions also mean the Legislature depends heavily on the executive branch and outside expertise to do its work.

New Mexico uses a hybrid system that blends merit selection with elections. A judge typically first reaches the bench by gubernatorial appointment from a nominating commission’s list, then runs in a partisan election to keep the seat, and thereafter faces nonpartisan retention votes. The New Mexico Supreme Court sits at the top, above the Court of Appeals and the trial-level District and Magistrate courts. The mix of appointment, partisan election, and retention is unusual and reflects compromises in the state constitution.