Barbour, the Influential Executive

This chapter discusses how Governor Haley Barbour successfully penetrated the legislatively dominated budget making process. It shows how Barbour did not increase the formal powers of the executive branch of government, but how he did increase the informal executive powers significantly. Chapter 8 explains how Barbour gained budget power through political relationships on the state and federal levels, which ultimately resulted in the state of Mississippi withstanding one of the worst storms in the nation’s history, Hurricane Katrina. Unlike his predecessor discussed in the previous chapter, Governor Barbour did not get a single gubernatorial veto overridden because of the party loyalty that he championed among Republicans.