Talk:Secretary of state

Dab?
I want to disambiguate this page.

In the UK the Secretary of State is the chief minister in a particular government department. Thus we have -


 * Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
 * Secretary of State for Home Affairs (Home Secretary)
 * Secretary of State for Education and Employment
 * Secretary of State for Wales
 * etc..

I know that the US has the United States Secretary of State who is the equivalent of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in the UK. I have also just found out that each US state has a Secretary of State, but I have no idea what the remit and powers of this office is. Can someone enlighten me? Mintguy — Preceding undated comment added 18:09, 21 December 2002 ''Reformated for clarity by 03:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * In theory, a Dab is unquestionably called for, bcz what we have now is a single article about 3 different types of office:
 * those dealing with issues that the head of government wants to present as singled out for his/her close supervision,
 * those representing the state in dealing with other states,
 * those dealing with matters not merely of public administration, but focusing on the quasi-sovereign power of US states: the process of constituting the body of the state (elections), creation of artificial "persons" (granting corporate charters), (in some states) officially establishing the existence of real persons (birth records), and (rarely) negotiating on behalf of the state the treaty-like inter-(US-)state "compacts" provided for (contingent on Congressional approval) in the US Constitution
 * these types of office having in common only
 * a concern with, broadly construed, "affairs of state", and
 * similar wording in their titles.
 * And (again in theory) we should treat them in three articles, with some sort (Dab page or HatNote Dab) of Dab'g structure. (Distinct from Dab'g structure, it is in theory possible to have an article on the history and rationales of the term "secretary of state", which would lk to those 3 articles, tho not in the way a Dab does; that article would have to be more than three dictdefs, and i doubt it is worth creating.) I'm not sure it would be a bad idea to reorganize thusly:
 * Secretary of State - either the Dab, or a Rdr (to United States Secretary of State? to Foreign minister, as in "NATO foreign ministers' meeting"?)
 * Entries on the Dab -- whether that Dab is at
 * Secretary of State
 * Secretary of State (disambiguation)
 * Secretary of state or
 * Secretary of state (disambiguation)
 * -- should include at least
 * Secretary of state (UK)
 * United States Secretary of State
 * Secretary of state (US state)
 * (but probably not Foreign minister, since the Yanks who call them "secretaries of state" seldom believe the terms are interchangeable, and probably do it along the lines of "Whaddya call 'em, you know, foreign secretary-of-states")
 * Theory aside, the theoretically prescribed solution could be worse than the current one. I'd rather see solutions proposed in the form of sub-pages for evaluation. And i'd like to hear whether this neglected talk page is likely to offer any discussion toward doing this right if it's to be done, or whether one-person is likely to have to make a project of it. --Jerzy•t 03:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Bump Mintguy — Preceding undated comment added 00:52, 24 December 2002
 * What?? --Jerzy•t 03:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * the article as it is seems hilarious to me. How can you write about secretary of state in Russia (Angola, etc.) if these countries have no such post??? There is good article already Minister of Foreign Affairs. Why should you invent somthing? Write about secteraty of state in US (both on federal and state level)Sardv (talk) 22:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

US states
AFAIK, the two main duties of a state's Secretary of State are supervising elections and licensing corporations and professionals (details vary from state to state).
 * About California's Sec. of State
 * About Pennsylvania's Sec. of the Commonwealth (still Dept. of State)
 * About Montana's Sec. of State

--Mrwojo 01:27 Dec 24, 2002 (UTC)

Dep. PM
I have added currently to UK DPM entry. The SoS is not automatic and the article appeared perhaps to imply that.Alci12 12:28, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
 * That is
 * ... added the word "currently" to ...
 * Of course, "currently" meant "as of 2006"; those who know more may want to update my corrective edit. --Jerzy•t 03:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Nigeria
The Nigerian case discusses the phenomenon foreign minister, not secretary of state, it should be moved. --C mon 20:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

As no one seemed to object, this has been done. Camhusmj38 19:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Secretary of State vs. State Secretary
A Secretary of State for.... is a "political head of a ministerial department" in a presidential system (head of state and gouvernemtn leader are the same person) or a system the gouvermental leader only is responsible to the parliament and not the mebers of the gouvernment called just secretaries of state and not ministers.

A state secretary is the most senior offical by career (even it is a political appointment) in a ministry within a parliamentarian system —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.183.212.184 (talk) 19:34, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Variant titles in U.S. states
It appears "Secretary of the State" is used at least occasionally in state documents, outside of CT: i found LA & Tenn. examples, but it's hard to search (e.g. there's "Secretary of the State XYZ Board"), and a different problem to find the definitive sources for 46 remaining states. CT is very clear -- even the domain is sots.ct.gov, and it's -- but i can't rule out there being other states where the "the" is also official. Consider checking your state's constitution & SoS main page, and adding a notation to the following list. --Jerzy•t 03:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Alabama - AL
 * Alaska - AK
 * American Samoa - AS
 * Arizona - AZ
 * Arkansas - AR
 * California - CA
 * Colorado - CO
 * Connecticut - CT (heading on) SotS home page, State const, Art. 4, secn 1: "A general election for .... secretary of the state... --Jerzy•t 03:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Delaware - DE
 * DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - DC
 * FEDERATED STATES OF MICRONESIA - FM
 * FLORIDA - FL
 * GEORGIA - GA
 * GUAM - GU
 * HAWAII - HI
 * IDAHO - ID
 * ILLINOIS - IL
 * INDIANA - IN
 * IOWA - IA
 * KANSAS - KS
 * KENTUCKY - KY
 * LOUISIANA - LA
 * MAINE - ME
 * MARSHALL ISLANDS - MH
 * MARYLAND - MD
 * MASSACHUSETTS - MA
 * MICHIGAN - MI
 * MINNESOTA - MN
 * MISSISSIPPI - MS
 * MISSOURI - MO
 * MONTANA - MT
 * NEBRASKA - NE
 * NEVADA - NV
 * NEW HAMPSHIRE - NH
 * NEW JERSEY - NJ
 * NEW MEXICO - NM
 * NEW YORK - NY
 * NORTH CAROLINA - NC
 * NORTH DAKOTA - ND
 * NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS - MP
 * OHIO - OH
 * OKLAHOMA - OK
 * OREGON - OR
 * PALAU - PW
 * PENNSYLVANIA - PA
 * PUERTO RICO - PR
 * RHODE ISLAND - RI
 * SOUTH CAROLINA - SC
 * SOUTH DAKOTA - SD
 * TENNESSEE - TN
 * TEXAS - TX
 * UTAH - UT
 * VERMONT - VT
 * VIRGIN ISLANDS - VI
 * Virginia - VA
 * Washington - WA
 * West Virginia - WV
 * Wisconsin - WI
 * Wyoming - WY

Volkstaat?
I urge that the Republic of South Africa and Orange Free State entries be removed from this page. They are completely historial and unimportant in the current world for understanding the concept of a secretary of state. If it is necessary to discuss the structure of these historical govts, it should be done on their respective pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.3.129.165 (talk) 21:23, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

United Kingdom - "there is in theory only one office of Secretary of State"
This does not accord with legal action being routinely addressed against a specified SoS and the standard interpretation appearing to be in the nature of "whoever is the appropriate SoS for any particular matter addressed in legislation which involves a SoS". Schedule 1 of the Interpretation Act 1978 also implies that there is no single "Secretary of State" - " "Secretary of State" means one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State". The existence of only one SoS seems to be a past matter which has not applied for many years. --MBRZ48 (talk) 22:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)--MBRZ48 (talk) 22:13, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

There are functions Orders-in-Council made dividing up the functions of the Secretary of State between the ministers in different Departments. This is how you can have legal action against specific SoSs when in principle there is only one SoS. The reason why the use of the title SoS has grown at the expense of "Minister" (and quite recently there were still Cabinet-ranking Ministers of Defence, Overseas Development and Agriculture) is not just grandiosity: it is a lot easier to administer changes of governmental responsibility if they can be made just by non-Parliamentary Order in Council than if all legislation has to be laboriously changed to refer to the correct Minister. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 14:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Form and substance
This article is a muddle: it does not know if it is about offices named "Secretary of State" offices whose name (even when not in English) looks in some way like the name "Secretary of State", or about offices with particular functions. For example the office of "Secrétaire d'État" in France is quite different from that of "Secretary of State" in the UK, or the office, different again, of "Secretary of State" in the USA (though the name looks similar). I suggest the article be deleted as incoherent and unhelpful. Diomedea Exulans (talk) 14:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)