State governments of the United States

In the **United States**, each of the 50 states has its own **state government**.  This means there are 50 separate **state governments of the United States.**

## Federal vs. state governments
The state governments are mostly set up in the same way as the federal government of the United States.  However, the state and  governments are not the same.  Mostly, each state government controls things that have to do with its own state.  The federal government controls things that affect the whole country.

The United States Constitution divides power between the state governments and the federal government.  The Founding Fathers of the United States wrote the Constitution this way to make sure that neither the federal government or the states could get too powerful.

## Legislature
Every state has its own state legislature, which makes laws that affect that state only.

Different states have different names for their legislatures:
* 26 states call their legislatures "the Legislature"
* 19 states call their legislatures "the General Assembly"
* North Dakota and Oregon use the name "Legislative Assembly
* Massachusetts and New Hampshire use the name "General Court"
* Nebraska calls its entire unicameral legislature "the Senate"

### The House of Representatives
The second house in the state legislatures is usually called the House of Representatives.

However, nine states use different names for this house:

* Governor
** Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer, and seven other elected officials
*** State agencies (some of the largest are the Department of Corrections; Department of Health Services; Juvenile Corrections; and Department of Transportation)
**** Boards and commissions (like the Board of Nursing; Board of Education; and the Commission of Parks)

## Judiciary
Each state has a few different kinds of state courts.

Trial courts are the first level of state courts.  Here, people can file lawsuits.  People charged with crimes are also tried here and found guilty or not guilty.  There are also special kinds of trial courts, like:
* Juvenile courts (for children who have committed crimes or often behave badly)
* Divorce courts
* Family courts (which deal with problems like child abuse and neglect, and also do adoptions)

In most states, appeals courts (also called "appellate courts") are the next level of state courts.  If someone who went to a trial court thinks that court made the wrong decision, they can appeal to an appellate court.  That court can decide to reverse the lower (less powerful) trial court's decision.  The appeals courts can do this if the trial court made a legal mistake.

Finally, most states have a supreme court.  This is the most powerful court in the state.  If a person has already appealed to the appellate courts, and they still think the court's decision was wrong, they can appeal to the state supreme court.  Once the state supreme court makes a decision, that decision becomes state law.  The decision can only be changed or reversed by federal courts.  That can only happen if the federal courts think the state supreme court made a decision that  the Constitution.

Each state's constitution or legislature spells out what type of courts the state will have, how they will work, and how judges will be chosen.  Like with state executive departments, state courts can be very different from state to state.

## References
## Other websites
* Learn more about state courts and what they do