Ohio

Ohio has a plural executive. Voters elect a slate of statewide officials independently of one another: the Governor, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Treasurer of State, and the Auditor of State, who serves as the state’s independent financial watchdog. Because these officers run on their own, they answer to voters rather than to the Governor.

The one exception to independent election is the Lieutenant Governor, who runs on a joint ticket with the Governor and so always shares the Governor’s party. The Lieutenant Governor’s duties are largely whatever the Governor assigns, often including leading a major agency.

The Governor appoints the directors of the cabinet agencies that aren’t separately elected and leads a large professional bureaucracy.

The Ohio General Assembly is bicameral: a 33-seat State Senate (four-year terms) and a 99-seat House of Representatives (two-year terms). It is a full-time, professional legislature with a base salary of $71,099 a year (set by statute, with extra pay for leadership and committee roles) and dedicated staff.

Members are limited to eight consecutive years in a single chamber, after which they must leave that chamber (though many move to the other one). The General Assembly works on a two-year cycle and meets through much of the year.

A bill is introduced, sent 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 without a signature, and holds a line-item veto over appropriations. Ohio’s override threshold is three-fifths of each chamber, slightly lower than the two-thirds many states require.

Ohio is also a strong direct-democracy state. Citizens can use the initiative to enact their own statutes and to propose amendments to the state constitution, and they can use the referendum to block a law the legislature has passed by referring it to a statewide vote. Qualifying any of these takes a large number of valid petition signatures; once on the ballot, a simple majority decides. Major Ohio policy fights, redistricting, drug sentencing, abortion, have been settled directly at the ballot box.

The Governor appoints the heads of the non-elected agencies, fills certain vacancies, proposes the budget, can call special sessions, holds broad emergency powers, and wields a line-item veto (and holds the clemency power, subject to a required advisory review). Within the executive branch the Governor shares authority with the independently elected Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Auditor.

The larger check is the ballot box. Because Ohioans can pass statutes and constitutional amendments by initiative and repeal laws by referendum, an Ohio governor and legislature can find their work undone, or bypassed entirely, by a direct vote of the people, and the lower three-fifths override threshold makes the legislature a bit less beholden to the Governor’s veto than in most states.

Ohio elects its judges. Candidates for the bench run in elections that historically were nonpartisan on the general-election ballot, though recent law added party labels for the higher courts. The Supreme Court of Ohio sits at the top, above the district Courts of Appeals and the trial-level Courts of Common Pleas. Mid-term vacancies are filled by gubernatorial appointment, after which the appointee must stand for election.