Governors as CEOs:
A Blueprint for Merit-Based Governance in the States
Introduction
In state governments across the United States, governors function as the chief executives of sprawling bureaucracies—in effect, the CEOs of their states. Elected by and accountable to the entire voting public of their state, a governor enters office with a popular mandate to implement policies and deliver results. In theory, this democratic legitimacy should empower governors to direct state agencies and manage resources efficiently, much like a private-sector CEO drives a company’s performance. In practice, however, a gap often exists between the governor’s mandate and the bureaucracy’s actions.
Career civil servants, protected by merit system rules and insulated from politics, wield significant control over day-to-day governance, sometimes diluting or even defying the elected executive’s agenda. Only a tiny fraction of government employees are political appointees. At the federal level, political appointees constitute less than 0.2 percent of the workforce,[i] so the vast majority of those implementing policy are unelected staff whose tenure does not depend on voter approval. This reality creates tension between popular mandate and bureaucratic control: voters may hold the governor accountable for government performance, but the governor, in turn, may find it difficult to hold the bureaucracy accountable. Scholars and watchdogs have documented instances of career officials “slow-walk[ing]” directives, withholding information, or otherwise undermining initiatives they dislike.[ii] Such bureaucratic resistance—sometimes dubbed the “deep state” phenomenon—underscores a deficit in democratic accountability. In other cases, resistance comes in the form of overly bureaucratic systems or ineffective staff. The question of whether ineffectiveness may be due to malice or incompetence is frequently top of mind for those looking to reform government from within. In either case, when civil service rules make it arduous to discipline or remove employees, unelected staff can effectively veto or sabotage policies set by elected leadership, undermining the very principle that the people’s chosen representatives steer the government.
The challenges of bureaucratic entrenchment are compounded by opaque performance and procedural complexity. Many state agencies operate with little visibility into their outcomes, and complex rules often prioritize process over results. Lackluster performance metrics and public reporting can hide underperformance; similarly, convoluted grievance and appeal procedures can shield ineffective employees from consequences. The result is a gap between voter accountability and administrative reality: a governor may be blamed for failings (slow services, wasteful spending, regulatory overreach) that persist because the bureaucracy is neither fully visible to the public nor easily directed by its executive leadership. To bridge this gap, we argue that governors must assert more CEO-like control — setting goals, rewarding success, and removing obstacles — thereby aligning the bureaucracy’s incentives with the public interest.
This paper proposes a comprehensive, merit-based reform agenda to reshape state government in line with private-sector performance principles. Our core thesis is that states should orient incentives toward merit at every level of government service while nurturing an administrative culture of intellectual humility and restraint. In practice, this means empowering governors and agency leaders to reward high performers and remove poor performers, instituting rigorous performance management and accountability systems, and recruiting top talent with competitive merit-based processes and exams. An emphasis on intellectual humility and restraint further implies that civil servants adopt a service-oriented mindset—recognizing the limits of their knowledge and authority, avoiding bureaucratic overreach, and faithfully executing policy choices made by elected officials rather than advancing personal or ideological agendas.
Our analysis is organized as follows:
Part I, “Remove Poor Performers,” examines how to streamline disciplinary processes and remove obstacles that allow persistent underperformers to remain in government positions. It explores reforms to civil service rules, appeals procedures, and organizational structures that currently impede accountability.
Part II, “Incentivize and Reward High Performance,” discusses establishing measurable goals, implementing robust performance evaluations, and creating reward systems that encourage excellence rather than mere longevity.
Part III, “Seek Out and Staff with Top Talent,” addresses improvements in hiring and promotion, advocating for rigorous selection methods (such as competitive examinations) and strategies to attract the best candidates into public service.
Finally, the Conclusion outlines an implementation strategy for these reforms and candidly assesses potential challenges—legal, political, and practical—that our proposed overhaul of state government would likely encounter. Throughout, our paper draws on case studies of states that have attempted similar reforms, analyzing successes and setbacks, and grounds recommendations in empirical evidence and best practices from both the public and private sectors. Making governors “state CEOs” demands fundamental changes to civil service systems to ensure that those who govern can actually manage. By removing poor performers, rewarding excellence, and recruiting top talent while fostering a humble, service-focused bureaucratic culture, state governments can better translate electoral mandates into effective administration. The discussion below provides a roadmap for such merit-based reform, with detailed steps and real-world examples to inform policymakers and stakeholders interested in revitalizing their state’s public sector.
[i] “Increasing Accountability in the Civil Service.” 2021. Americafirstpolicy.com. 2021. https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/increasing-accountability-in-the-civil-service.
[ii] Johnson, Ronald, and Gary Libecap. 1994. “This PDF Is a Selection from an Out-of-Print Volume from the National Bureau of Economic Research Volume Title: The Federal Civil Service System and the Problem of Bureaucracy Title: The Implications of a Protected Bureaucracy” Publisher: 0–226. https://www.nber.org/system/files/chapters/c8638/c8638.pdf.