State agencies
Who actually carries out what the legislature passes, and how a commissioner gets the job.
The legislature passes a law. An agency carries it out. Health and Human Services, Transportation, Environmental Services, Education, Safety, Revenue Administration and the rest are where a statute becomes something that happens to somebody.
How a commissioner gets the job
Nominated by the Governor, confirmed by the Executive Council. That is the same route as a judge, and it is the most concrete answer to what the Council does. A commissioner serves a fixed term and can be reappointed the same way.
You have probably already met them
A department is usually among the first bodies asked what a bill would actually do, and often the body that would have to do it, so agency staff appear at hearings regularly. An agency may support a bill, oppose it, or appear as neutral and simply explain the effect.
If you have watched a hearing on this site and heard someone explain why a bill would be difficult to administer, that is what you were listening to.
What an agency cannot do
It cannot give itself powers the statute does not grant. What it can do is decide the detail, and it does that by writing rules — which is the next page.
In the record
Hearing recordings are linked from every bill's Videos tab, at the moment the bill was taken up. Committee pages list every day a committee met and what it heard.