POS 160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Consumer Protection, Chief Financial Officer, Notary Public
16 May 2019
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Document Summary
The history of the office of the governor is a long and complex one. The first state constitutions concentrated political power in the legislative branch. Early governors were typically elected by the legislature rather than by the voters, were restricted to a single one- year term of office and had little authority (georgia and pennsylvania even established a plural or multimember executive). In the early 1990s, along with their efforts to democratize national politics and clean up the corrupt city political machines, progressive reformers launched a campaign to reform state government. Their main target was the weak executive branch. The essential goal has been to increase the governor"s powers to make them more commensurate with the increased duties and responsibilities of the office. As a result, constitutional and statutory changes have fortified the office of the chief executive, reorganized the executive branch, and streamlined the structure and processes of the bureaucracy.
