Governors With Hostile Legislatures Still Have Options

New York Times: “With swift and brutal efficiency, North Carolina Republicans welcomed an incoming Democratic governor this month to an elite but hardly desirable club: the handful of governors around the nation who face veto-proof majorities of the opposing party…”

“Governors outgunned by veto-proof majorities in their legislatures have successfully used the bully pulpit of their office, going over the heads of part-time lawmakers to directly appeal to citizens.”

“Other times, governors have profited from a basic law of politics: They are usually more popular than legislative bodies, whose job favorability is little higher than that of perpetrators of Ponzi schemes. And governors in control of the bureaucracy of the executive branch have found that, like President Obama in the face of congressional obstruction, they can pull the levers of executive action to advance an agenda.”