ELEMENTARY CIVICS Governor Phil Bredesen PHOTO: Office of Governor Phil Bredesen Part Four: How is state government set up? The good news here is that Tennessee's government is set up very much like the U.S. government. If you've learned one, you've pretty much learned both of them. For example: Tennessee's system of government is spelled out in a state Constitution. The state has three branches of government. They are called the executive, the legislative, and the judicial, just like the U.S. government. A committee of the state senate The legislative branch of government MAKES the laws. It has a state house and state senate, just like the U. S. government. The executive branch of government ENFORCES the laws and runs the day-to-day operation of the state. The governor is the head of the executive branch of government. Tennessee's current governor is Phil Bredesen, who was first elected in November 2002 and was re-elected in November 2006. The Tennessee Supreme Court meets in this building. The judicial branch of government INTERPRETS the laws -- which means they decide exactly what the laws mean when people don't agree on them. They also run the courts. Like the judiciary branch of the U.S. government, the state judiciary branch is headed by a supreme court. Does some of this sound hard? Here's an example of how things might happen: Let's say that a member of the Tennessee state senate wants public libraries to have more books and wants the state to pay for them. He or she proposes a law to spend more of the state's tax money on books for libraries. The bill gets passed by the house and senate and becomes law.  Visitors take a tour of the Tennessee State Capitol The governor and the people who work for him enforce the law the best way they know how. That's the job of the executive branch. So they start sending more money to libraries like the one in your town to buy books. But whenever you spend lots of money on new things, there are arguments. Let's say, for instance, that some parts of the state complain that they aren't getting all the money that they are supposed to get under the new law. They might file a lawsuit in court to challenge the way the law is being enforced. That lawsuit might go all the way to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which might change the way all the new library book money is being spent. You'll learn a lot more about the way the Tennessee government works as the years go by. But let's shift gears. The state of Tennessee is divided into these smaller things called counties. Well, what's a county? Click here for the next section.