Sacramento, Calif. — When Californians vote for governor, they're only picking one of eight statewide executives. The attorney general, lieutenant governor, treasurer, controller, secretary of state, insurance commissioner, and superintendent of public instruction are all elected separately, independently of the governor and independently of each other. Political scientists call this a "plural executive." What it means in practice: unlike the president, the governor of California doesn't run the executive branch alone and doesn't appoint most of the people who do.
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The setup goes back to California's 1879 constitution, drafted when voters were furious at concentrated power, specifically the stranglehold railroads and other corporate interests had over Sacramento. Rather than let one governor pack the administration with loyalists and build a personal machine, the framers spread authority across multiple elected offices, each one answerable to voters directly, not to whoever won the top job.
The result is a government where the governor shares the executive stage with officials who can come from a different party, push different priorities, or openly position themselves as a check on the governor's agenda. It's a structural reality of California government that gets buried under horse-race coverage of the governor's race itself, but it's where power actually moves.
Start with the attorney general, arguably the second most consequential job in Sacramento. The AG is the state's top law enforcement officer and chief lawyer, but critically, not the governor's lawyer the way a White House counsel serves a president. The attorney general is independently elected and can take legal positions that diverge sharply from the governor's preferences. Over the decades, California attorneys general of both parties have sued the federal government, defended or challenged state agencies, and built independent political identities that put them on a direct collision course with the administration they technically serve under.
The lieutenant governor's office comes with its own peculiarities. Under the state constitution, the lieutenant governor becomes acting governor the moment the sitting governor leaves California, a provision that has produced genuinely weird political theater when the two officials belong to different parties or simply can't stand each other. The lieutenant governor also sits on bodies like the University of California Board of Regents and the California State Lands Commission, giving the office real influence over higher education and coastal resources that has nothing to do with the governor's wishes.
Then there's the controller, the independently elected chief fiscal officer, who audits state government spending and can withhold payments if legal requirements aren't met. The treasurer manages the state's investments and debt. The secretary of state runs elections and oversees business filings. The insurance commissioner is directly elected rather than appointed, a legacy of a 1988 ballot initiative that yanked the office out of the governor's hands entirely. And the superintendent of public instruction runs the Department of Education on a nonpartisan ballot line, meaning California's top education official doesn't even have to share the governor's party registration.
Supporters of the system say it does exactly what the 1879 framers wanted: it stops any single officeholder from consolidating too much authority and gives voters direct accountability over specific functions of government. If Californians are unhappy with how the state handles insurance rates, they can vote out the insurance commissioner without having to unseat the governor over a completely unrelated fight.
Critics say the plural executive can produce its own brand of dysfunction. When independently elected officials all have competing political ambitions, frequently eyeing the governor's office themselves, policy coordination falls apart. A governor's environmental initiative might draw resistance from an insurance commissioner worried about market stability. An attorney general with statewide ambitions might use the office to build a brand distinct from, or openly opposed to, the administration's. Because every one of these offices is a viable stepping stone to the governorship, California's plural executive functions as much as an incubator for rival campaigns as a genuine system of checks and balances.
The practical effects show up in how state government operates every day. A governor cannot order the attorney general to drop a legal position, cannot direct the controller's audits, and cannot fire the insurance commissioner over a policy dispute. Each of these officials answers only to voters. Each can build an independent record, and an independent constituency, over four years.
It's a structure unusual even among U.S. states, many of which have plural executives but few of which spread independent authority quite this widely. For California voters, it means the down-ballot statewide races, routinely overshadowed by the marquee governor's contest, actually determine who controls significant levers of state power. The attorney general who wins in November will set legal policy independent of whoever sits in the governor's office. The insurance commissioner will regulate an entire industry without needing the governor's sign-off. That's not a footnote to how California is run. That is how California is run.