Gubernatorial Tools: Formal vs. Informal

GOVERNORS VS. LEGISLATURES: VETOES, OVERRIDES, AND POLICY MAKING IN THE AMERICAN STATES1

“…Both office and personal characteristics enter into any govemor's decision to veto iegisiation and the potential for overrkie. The formal veto power of a govemor is acknowledged by state legislators as a potent pdftical tool (Bernick, 1979). The strength of the formal grant to veto is an obvious starting point and has been incorporated in all previous studies.…”

What Determines a Governor's Popularity?

“…The impact of public opinion about a governor is clearest on election day, when voters are more likely to vote for popular governors (Kenney and Rice 1983;King 2001), but it is evident in other ways as well. As with the president, a governor's ability to achieve his or her policy objectives depends on a combination of formal and informal powers (Bernick 1979;Beyle 1999;Rosenthal 1990). A key element of a governor's informal powers is the public's assessment of his or her job performance (Beyle 1999), with a popular governor being more likely to achieve his or her policy goals.…”

Governors and Economic Development Policy: The Perception of Their Role and the Reality of Their Influence

“…Having examined the attftudinal dimension of the govemor's rde in economic deveiopment, the next section examines the relative power of govemors in the pdicy area. Examining gubematorial power has been a predominant theme in comparative state pdftics (e.g., Schiesinger, 1965;Dometrius, 1979;Bemick, 1979;Beyie, 1983;Meuller, 1985). Recently, Sigeiman and Dometrius (1988) reported that gubernatorial power over state agencies (using an index of influence deveioped by Abney and Lauth [1983] from survey responses of 778 state administrators across the fifty states) was related to a combination of formal powers granted through constitutions and statutes and informal pdftical resources determined by their electoral securfty and party control of the legisiature.…”