State

From Sunshine Review

A state is any one of the fifty subnational entities of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government (four states use the official title of commonwealth rather than state).

States are free to organize their state governments any way they like, as long as they conform to the sole requirement of the U.S. Constitution that they have "a Republican Form of Government". In practice, each state has adopted a three branch system of government generally along the same lines as that of the federal government.

Despite the fact that each state has chosen to follow the federal model, there are significant differences in some states. One of the most notable is that of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature, which, unlike the legislatures of the other 49 states, has only one house. While there is only one federal president, who then selects a Cabinet responsible to him, most states have a plural executive, with members of the executive branch elected directly by the people and serving as equal members of the state cabinet alongside the governor. And only a few states choose to have their judicial branch leaders—their judges on the state's courts—serve for life terms.

The governance of states is sub-divided into counties and municipalities.

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This article was taken and modified from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under the GNU license.