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A conference paper about the relationship between rhetorical style and public responsiveness in several U.S. governors is presented. Topics discussed include political communication skills of governors to promote their policy, their verbal style and gubernatorial style which consists measures of optimism, certainty and realism. It highlights the variability in verbal style within the speeches of an individual and communication with colleagues.

The article presents a conference paper on a balanced budget of New Mexico for 2013, to be presented during the U.S. Western Political Science Association Meeting in Oregon as of February 2012. Topics include redistrict ion of the state legislative and congressional seats by the New Mexico State Legislature, participation of both the governor and the Legislative Finance Committee of New Mexico in budget, and several legislation related to drivers' license and taxes that affect the budget.

In prior research, I examined the role of ideology among African-American candidates for statewide elections among a handful of Congressional Representatives seeking to be a governor or senator. In this study, we broaden our survey to include all candidates for statewide office (a state's Governor or U.S. Senator) between 1966 and 2010. We also look at a variety of potential explanatory factors that account for either victories or close calls: the year the election took place, the region where the election took place, the state's African-American population, the African-American candidate's experience, whether the African-American faces an incumbent or not, coattail factors, the office sought, and the political party of the candidate. Results reveal that the experience of the candidate, as well as that of his or her opponent, may be the strongest factor in determining the success of the statewide candidate who is African-American. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 2010 election Pennsylvania's new Governor Tom Corbett proposed to do what two previous Republican Governors Dick Thornburgh and Tom Ridge failed to do -privatize the state-owned stores selling wine and spirits. Using Kingdon's model of the policy process this analysis examines the reasons for failure to privatize the most restrictive control regime in the nation. First, neither governor was able to link the issue to a pressing problem. Second, support for privatization was broad but not deep. The economic interests benefitting from the state monopoly primarily the state stores' unionized employees were well organized with skillful leadership. Third, opposition from fundamentalist religious groups that had backed prohibition continues to oppose liberalization of liquor sales. Neither Thornburgh nor Ridge commanded support from a majority of their party the legislature. The finding of Sorauf and Kennedy that Republican lawmakers tend to act as delegates from their constituencies helps explain why. Republican lawmakers from conservative rural areas opposed liberalization of liquor sales, while suburban Republicans tended to back the initiatives in the name of competition and smaller government. Given the slow pace of change in Pennsylvania politics these findings raise question about the prospects for renewed efforts to privatize retail and wholesale liquor sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State governments have multiple political safeguards that defend their interests before the federal government. Yet approximately half the states have offices in Washington that represent the state government in our federal system, and there are seven governors associations - national, regional, and partisan - in Washington. Why do governors believe they need these organizations, when the American federal system is explicitly designed to protect states, and when there are so many other political safeguards of federalism? In this paper, I examine the role for these offices as political safeguards of federalism. I first present the political safeguards of federalism as they are designed to function, and then examine the failings of these safeguards. I next review what states and their governors need vis-à-vis the federal government, how lobbying offices and associations can assist, and what their limitations are. I argue that though there are many political safeguards, they have shortcomings that leave gaps, and states' lobbying offices and associations are structured to fill these gaps. Though these organizations will have their own weaknesses, they serve an important role in a system of political safeguards that depends on redundancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We capture the policy agendas of governors in the areas of health, education and economic from 1991 through 2013 using their State of the State addresses. We analyze if and how policy diffusion occurs between governors' policy agendas in these areas and Congress and the president. Our research considers how federalism and the nature of gubernatorial policy agendas shape the state-federal relationship. We find that in economic policy the federal policy agenda influences the priorities found in State of the State addresses while in health policy the agendas of governors' influence federal level priorities. Overall, we find a more dynamic relationship between the levels of government than initially anticipated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of national economic changes on party swings in state legislative seats and party changes in governorships in a historical context. The period in question covers an era when the economy was largely unregulated by the national government, and the onus fell to state governments to handle the problems related to fluctuating interest rates, inflation and deflation, and bank panics. We posit, then, that the electoral prospects of parties in state government should be affected by changes in the national economic situation to a greater extent than observed in modern studies. We expect to find that voters punished majority parties at the state level when the economy took a downturn, especially during bank panics and periods of deflation, as these governments were the principal actors in economic regulation. This will add to the existing literature on economics and state politics by expanding the scope of study to a period when economic changes were more pronounced and state governments played a larger role in the banking and financial sectors. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Before 1876, no American president had been elected directly from a statehouse. By 1932 five had, and a would-be sixth, Theodore Roosevelt, came to the office through a line of succession made possible by his successful tenure as Albany’s executive. While the modern presidency is increasingly recognized as owing its origins to the administrations of Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, an essential common denominator of the two has largely been ignored. The examples of Roosevelt and Wilson â€"and their progeny â€"as state executives, have been disconnected from the larger story of how moderns reconceived the office of President. Moreover, the American governorship’s contributions as an institution that helped redefine newly emerging Progressive Era notions of executive power, has been understudied, and in the main, undervalued. .x000d..x000d.From Grover Cleveland to Franklin Roosevelt, a progressive line of governors and governor-presidents helped construct an executive-centered governing philosophy that has uniquely stamped what we have come to know as the modern presidency. This paper reflects upon the "Hidden Prince" of American executive power's growth -- the role of governors in advancing early unitary conceptions of the popular executive. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which governors attain national political office upon leaving a state’s highest office. The analysis includes personal and institutional factors that contribute to a transition from state to national politics. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the concept of political party as a separate source of gubernatorial influence in the legislature in the U.S. The author argues that gubernatorial influence on legislative decision making hinges on the state of his or her party within the state legislature and not on the legal authority of his office. He adds that legislature-centered explanations should be considered when analyzing the different levels of gubernatorial influence.

In state policy making, governors are the only political actors that represent an entire state rather than a legislative subdivision. Governors, with their power of initiation, hold a significant advantage over the state legislatures in setting the policy agenda (Jewell and Morehouse 2001). Despite this key role governors play in shaping policy, the study of what factors influence governors' policy agendas has received little attention in the scholarly literature. What research that has been done on state policy agendas focuses only on governors in several states (Morehouse 1998; Van Assendelft 1997) or on other inputs to the policy making process. In this latter regard, state policy has been found to be reflective of both electoral (legislatures) (Erikson, Wright, and McIver 1993) and party activist coalitions (Morehouse 1998). The representational bond, as analyzed by Erikson, Wright and McIver (1993), appears strongest between aggregated opinion of the mass electorate and elected officials. Owing to "measurement considerations, rather than a disregard for the governor's role in the legislative process," the role of the governor is not included in these models of policy representation (Erikson, Wright and McIver 1993, 126). Morehouse (1998), however, suggests that the policy process frequently begins with the governor. We propose to examine the factors that affect the ideological directions of governors' agendas by first developing a reliable way to systematically measure those dispositions. We then consider the state level indicators that shape the political bent of governors' agendas.Since a governor's "state of the state" address outlines the main political priorities he or she wants enacted, they provide the best insight into the governor's political agenda (Coffey 2005). We conduct a content analysis of state of the state speeches from 1991 through 1993 and 2000 through 2002 to measure the ideology of governors' legislative agendas. We then use data from the mass electorate, party activists, state legislatures, and state-level contextual data to test hypotheses about how governors' policy agendas respond ideologically to both elite and mass constituents, political actors in the legislature, and the nature of their states. To develop measures of governor ideology, we rely on content analytic techniques developed by Laver and Benoit (2003) and Laver, Benoit, and Garry (2003). We employ the 1992 and 2000 Convention Delegate Studies to measure elite attitudes ideology as well as data from 1992 and 2000 exit polls to measure the ideology of mass partisans. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In any given year, some areas of a state's budget experience little change while other areas suffer dramatic cuts or undergo massive increases. What explains such a pattern? The aim of this research is to determine the causal factors behind budget punctuations (i.e. the occurrence of incremental and large scale fiscal change) in American states. We analyze the institutional constraints producing budget punctuations at the US state level using maximum likelihood estimation on panel data from 1983 to 1999. We argue that a governor's agenda setting and veto powers increase budget punctuations because institutionally strong governors are able to mold budget requests in the image of their preferences and fend off legislative alternatives. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Michigan House members say that the power of the executive branch, including both the governor and state agencies, increased after term limits. In this poster we explore the extent to which representatives say they consult the governor's office and state agency officials for information and guidance on a difficult issue. Additionally, we explore the amount of time legislators report spending monitoring state agencies and the grade they give themselves for performing this task. Our data are based on interviews with Michigan House members before and after term limits. We discover that after term limits, House members consult executive branch actors more extensively about a difficult issue than they did before term limits. Additionally we discover that the small amount of time they spent monitoring state agencies before term limits declined after term limits. The grade they give themselves for this activity declined too. Based on open-ended comments made by the Representatives we interviewed, we found that the number who did not realize that they should exercise oversight over the executive branch increased after term limits and more representatives also revealed in their comments that they did not understand what monitoring state agencies involved. Hence we suggest that these are some of the ways in which the executive branch has become more powerful relative to the legislature after terrm limits. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigates whether the U.S. public's punitive actions against state legislatures are the result of actual state-level conditions or whether the public's negative feelings about Congress are driving these actions. Factors known to impact gubernatorial ratings; Possible effect of feelings about a state's U.S. Senators on gubernatorial approval; Discussion of the findings concerning state level forces.

This paper analyses the campaign strategy and job performance of U.S. Governors from 1977 to 2002. The analysis finds that ambitious amateurs pursue strategies similar to higher quality candidates with substantial experience in elected office. Ambitious amateurs rather than experience seeking amateurs ultimately win primary and general elections. The analysis also finds socialization theory best accounts for the popularity and tenure of amateur governors. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governing Experience and Being Govenor: Does It Matter? Governors are the single most notable figures in state government and when celebrities or other financially well backed but politically inexperienced candidates run for this important office, pundits rightfully question their qualifications and competency. The recent candidacy and election of Austrian-born movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for Governor of California in the fall 2003 recall election is a case in point. With the release of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,@ Schwarzenegger fueled speculation he would run for governor of California. He subsequently announced his candidacy before a national audience on late night television and his fame and financial backing made him a formidable candidate. His lack of qualifications may seem obvious, but few studies systematically assess whether that matters for how a governor performs in office. Yet 14 percent of the governors elected since 1981 have no previous public sector experience (Beyle, 2004). I propose to write a paper which assesses whether previous government experience matters for how governors perform in office (1981 through 1994). Performance will be measured by state polling data which research has shown correlates with scholarly assessments of gubernatorial job performance (Beyle, 1995). The approval data is from the Official State Job Approval Project (JAR). Issues concerning unique properties of these data, such as the fact that they were collected by different polling firms as well as the fact that they are not randomly drawn will be handled and as described by Beyle (2002). The anlaysis will also investigate whether particularly types of career experience in the public and private sector point to better job performance ratings in office. Forty-five percent of governors served in either the state legislature or in a statewide executive office prior to becoming governor 1981 to 2002. The others became governor after serving in state level administration, law enforcement, Congress, local elective office, or party leadership. The biographical data for governors will be coded from the Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States. There will also be measures for tenure and partisanship. Finally, a number of state level variables measuring state ecnomic conditions, ideology, partisan control of government, and population will included in the analysis as control variables. References Beyle, Thad. L. 1995. “Enhancing Executive Leadership in the States,” State and Local Government Review, 27, 18-35. 2004. “The Governors.” in Virginia Gray, Russell L. Hanson, and Herbert Jacob, eds., Politics in the American States. 8th ed. Washington D.C.: CQ Press. Beyle, Thad L., Richard G. Niemi, and Lee Sigelman. 2002. “Gubernatorial, Senatorial, and State-Level Presidential Job Approval Ratings: The U.S. Officials Job Approval Ratings (JAR) Collection,” State Poltics and Policy Quaterly, 2(Fall): 215-229. Raimo, John W. 1985. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States 1978-1983. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Mullaney, Marie M. 1989. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States 1983-1988. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 1994. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States 1988-1994. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]