Talk:Comparison of U.S. state and territory governments

Additional work/content needed
The article is mostly complete except for a few final entries on the state legislature section. There are also some sections that have question marks, or for which I couldn't quickly find the information. Those should be completed as possible too. It would be difficult to provide cites for each fact (and messy), so it may be better to provide general references at the bottom and have notes only for where there are anomalies.

Here is a quick todo list for new addition ideas:
 * Judicial: Add retention election information (right now the "term length" means time between either a new election or a new retention. The column should distinguish between the two)
 * All: If elections are statewide or local (i.e. within district)
 * Judicial: Maximum age / minimum retirement age (many states have these)
 * Judicial: Is the chief elected specifically as the chief, or selected from the court
 * Judicial: Does the chief judge have special powers beyond other justices
 * Judicial: Term limits (I don't know if these exist)
 * Judicial: Better explanation of the selection processes of judges
 * Judicial: Are high court judges elected differently than trial court judges
 * Executive: Order of succession information

Feel free to add others below. Shadowjams (talk) 20:06, 21 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I created a to do list above and added an idea of my own there. I also titled this section.  Stevie is the man!  Talk • Work 14:39, 19 August 2014 (UTC)


 * I have expanded and enhanced the article's introduction. Drdpw (talk) 02:35, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

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Special elections for Governor
In Oregon, if a casual vacancy for Governor arises, a special election is held, as happened in 2016, 1956 and 1948. This happened in Wyoming in the past, but I am not sure if a special election would still be held if a Wyoming Governor resigns — for instance due to poor health.

Nonetheless, if a special election is held for a new Governor, as in Oregon, this needs to be noted.Luokehao, 21 October 2019, 05:21 (UTC)

DC and the territories
I was just wondering why DC and the territories should not be on this list. Several places throughout Wikipedia use include these with states, just with a note. An example can be found here. This page also includes DC even though the title does not say that. If they are not appropriate for this page, then we should create a new page, something along the lines of "Comparison of US State, Federal District, and Territory Governments". Esb5415 (talk) 17:14, 30 July 2020 (UTC)


 * As I said in my edit summary, D.C. government is not a state government and so does not belong. Now, while D.C. and the five inhabited territories do not belong in this article there's no reason why a article couldn't be created. In fact, the topic, governments of U.S. territories (D.C. and the five inhabited territories), seems important enough to warrant an article comparable to this one. Alternatively, a combined  article, to include the 50 states, D.C. and the five inhabited territories (and to which this article would be merged) could be created. Either option works for me. BTW, you mentioned the "List of U.S. state abbreviations" article, IMO the title should be changed to "". Cheers. Drdpw (talk) 19:04, 31 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply. BTW, Puerto Rico is included in this article, that is where my confusion comes from! Esb5415 (talk) 19:21, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Noting that I have removed Puerto Rico governor and courts from the tables and I have moved the above mentioned "abbreviations" page. Drdpw (talk) 17:17, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Since this discussion is fragmented I'm leaving two comments. I think there is no good reason not to include the territories in this article. we include them in articles like List of states and territories of the United States by population and List of female governors in the United States. I don't think those articles suffer from the inclusion. A dedicated "Comparison of United States territory governments" article would be infrequently visited and too niche. This article is the place for that data. I understand the idea that comparing states to territories is apples-to-oranges, but I disagree with that assumption. Yes the governor table will have to be reworded to something along the lines of "chief executive", but I don't think that's such a wild difference to warrant a different article.  The Savage  Norwegian  18:41, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 31 March 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) ~ Aseleste  (t, e &#124; c, l) 05:15, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Comparison of U.S. state governments → Comparison of U.S. state and territory governments – To include the 5 territories and D.C. in this list. Esb5415 (talk) 14:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This seems premature, considering there is disagreement on the talk page about whether D.C. and the territories should be included in the article. Get consensus to include them, and then the article title can be updated. – Lord Bolingbroke (talk) 14:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Is there not consensus? I am one in the original thread, and I'm proposing the move that the other user proposed.
 * "Alternatively, a combined Comparison of U.S. state and territory governments article, to include the 50 states, D.C. and the five inhabited territories (and to which this article would be merged) could be created. Either option works for me."
 * Esb5415 (talk) 23:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm on board with this change. It's not unlike other United States articles like List of states and territories of the United States by population], which include territories. I don't see why we should arbitrarily exclude the territories here.  The Savage  Norwegian  18:29, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per nom and per Thesavagenorwegian. BD2412  T 00:31, 9 May 2021 (UTC)