# Plural Executive A **plural executive** is an executive branch whose senior offices are filled by separate statewide election rather than by appointment from a single chief executive. It is the ordinary American state arrangement and the sharpest structural difference between state government and the federal government, where every principal officer below the President is appointed and — with narrow and now-contested exceptions — removable at will. In 43 states the **attorney general** is separately elected. Most states also elect a secretary of state and a treasurer; several elect an auditor, a superintendent of public instruction, an agriculture commissioner or a public-utilities commission. These officials hold their own mandates, run on their own platforms, and cannot be fired by the governor for disagreeing. The consequence in emergency governance is a check that has **no federal analogue at all**: opposition from inside the executive branch, by people with independent authority. An elected attorney general decides whether to enforce a governor's order, or whether to sue over it. North Carolina goes furthest, conditioning the governor's largest emergency powers on the concurrence of the [[North Carolina Council of State]]. The same structure explains why state-level fights over election administration, consumer enforcement and disaster spending so often run between officials of the same executive branch. ## See also - [[North Carolina Council of State]] · [[State Emergency Powers Crosswalk]] · [[US Governors Hub]] · [[Federalism]]