He Said, They Did: Using Executive Rhetoric to Understand Interbranch Relationships in the American States

The relationship President Obama shared with Congress was contentious, to say the least. To date, President Trump’s relationship is also marred by similar struggles, despite his unified government. While much of the contention has been attributed to polarization, there are a wealth of additional factors that may influence their legislative successes. Unfortunately, much of the literature on interbranch relationships has focused on the role of partisanship and divided government. This is not surprising as 1) polarization and partisanship have only grown in Washington and 2) it is difficult to gain suitable leverage over this question as so few people have served as president, particularly in the Modern Era. If we turn to the states – our “laboratories of democracy” –we can then begin to develop broader theories that explain executive-legislative relationships. State politics scholars have concluded that, similar to the president, “governors are the most central and visible individual actors influencing state policy.” Like presidents, governors’ power to recommend legislation allows them to shape the larger policy agenda of their time in office. Governors and their legislatures, then, are a perfect avenue for testing some of the central questions surrounding interbranch relationships that a study at the federal level simply cannot answer. Using an original dataset of gubernatorial agendas and legislative successes spanning a decade, I consider political skill, institutional structure, and socio-demographic factors as potential contributors to a governor’s success. I find that neither gender nor previous legislative experience influence a governor’s success. It is the institutional structure of the legislature that plays the greatest role in the success of a governor’s policy agenda.