State of Texas Officials and their Political Power
Have you ever wondered who held more power in our state governments? Obviously, most would say the governor, unless that could be proven false by comparing the governor’s power to the lieutenant’s governor. By comparing the formal powers of the state governor to the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, it is proven that the Lt. governor wields more power than the Governor.
Granted by the Senate and Constitution, governors were given powers to: Sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature. Serve as commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. Convene special sessions of the Legislature for specific purposes. Deliver a report on the condition of the state to the Legislature at the beginning
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governor. His powers include to: serve as chairman of the Legislative Council, serve as the presiding officer of the Senate. The Lt. governor exercises the powers of the Governor if the Governor unexpectedly dies, resignation, removal, or absent. He can also appoint committees of the Senate and lastly, he can break a tie of a decided vote (William, 2010). Out of all these powers the one that stands out the most is that Lt. Governor Dan Patrick can have the opportunity to serve as Governor when is absent, even for just one day. The Lt. governor holds more power in the legislative branch instead of the executive, because of this, compared to the governor of Texas he wields more power. The governor has more duties, but he doesn’t have more access. Access is power. These positions given to the Lt. governor in the Senate, means he or she has the right to debate or vote in many …show more content…
Governors has more executive power, than legislative power, but the governor can have legislative power if they wanted to. In order to do this, they have to build a relationship with legislators and get them to listen to him whenever they want to install new programs, listen to his visions and etc. This is achievable as long as the governor is flexible, patient, and willing. Examples of this is “John Connally had the broadest vision and the best record—and he was the last governor to leave office without being defeated. Most governors, including Ann Richards and George W. Bush, the stars of the nineties”(Texas Monthly,
Firstly, in the state of Texas, the legislative branch has the ability to pass and create laws within the state while overseeing and monitoring the execution of these laws. The Texas legislature is among the few state legislatures that meets strictly every two years. Many people consider this branch to be the most powerful of state government in Texas due to its ability to aggressively control activities of the state government. The structure within the legislation is known as the bicameral system. This means there are two sub-branches that make up the legislation known as the State Senate as well as the House of Representatives.
The Constitution of 1876 and the Constitution of Texas are both incredibly influential to the government of Texas. Their importance lies in their ability to outline the structure of government, allocate powers between different branches, and establish the rights and responsibilities of both the government and the citizens. The Constitution of 1876, for example, involves the separation of powers, state government structure, Bill of Rights, legislative authority, and amending process. Meanwhile, the Current Constitution of Texas involves the outline of the state government structure, powers of the legislature, protection of individual rights, local government provisions, and the amendment process. Both the Constitution of 1876 and the current
The Texas Legislative Branch of Government The Texas Constitution divides the state government into three separate: the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the legislative branch. These three branches share equal power within the Texas State governemt. The executive branch is lead by the governor, the judicial branch consists of the Texas Supreme Court and the local courts around the state, finally, the legislative branch, is lead by the Texas Legislature, which includes the 150 members of the house of representatives and the 31 members of the state senate. These members of the house of representatives are elected to two-year terms and Senators serve four-year terms.
From the Constitution of Coahuila y Tejas of 1827 to The Texas Constitution of 1876, Texas has come a long way to preserve it unique constitution. With the fourth highest amendments in America, the present Texas constitution is known for its for extremely detailed, poorly written, and confusing nature. Like the national constitution, the Texas Constitution incorporates the principles of separation of power and representative democratic governance. Both constitutions provide a bicameral legislature. In like manner, the Texas Constitution contains a Bill of Rights and a system of diving power between the three branches government, legislative, executive, and Judicial.
Governor of State is the highest position but whenever need to do something important the governor always have to discuss with his Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House for joint decisions. In the list of “Executive Powers of Persuasion” in Texas Governors chapter, it wrote that the governor has military power which means the governor can give out the order to state’s military at any time that needed such as the governor could use the military for defense the state from the attack of outsiders or use the military for help states citizen from calamities such as flood, earthquake and so on. Governor might ask the Legislature to discussing and approving anything with his reasons. The “private school voucher” in Texas is the one of Rick Perry’s public policy failures because the Legislature has not passed. Every subjects that the governor wants to be pass need to approval by the legislature such as the budget or major bill.
Nevertheless, the governor office is still constitutionally weak, and the approval and successful implementation of gubernatorial budgetary and programmatic policies. Some movement towards increasing gubernatorial powers by legislative action has taken place in recent years. The Texas governor has many important functions to perform and be able to make the government strong so it can make up the office of chief executive for the state. Also, in Texas voters elect several key officers that include the Attorney General, Comptroller of public Accounts, and the Lieutenant Governor. Since these officials may not have a greater degree of loyalty to the governor and might therefore seek to undermine his term of office.
The Texas legislative process is governed by the Texas constitution as well as the House of Representative and the Senate. Its primary function is to enact laws to provide for the health, welfare, education, environment, and economic and general well-being of the citizens of Texas. It also establishes public policy through the passage of bills and resolutions and proposes amendments to the state constitution, which are then submitted to the voters for approval or disapproval. When a bill is proposed, it must go through the legislative process before it becomes a law. The legislative process is very long and has many steps.
The history of political parties in Texas is marked by nearly a century of Democratic Party dominance followed by a realignment that shifted the balance of power in favor if the republicans. Political science professor Cal Jilson noted that the dominance of one party in Texas has been a result of the state’s dominant values. Both parties in Texas today reflect more conservative versions of their national counterparts. The other chapter talks about the Interest groups in Texas. Interest groups plays a critical role in all democratic systems of government.
Although Texas government is democratic, the rich and educated make most of the decisions according to Texas politics, 6th Edition. Government-refers to the institutions in which decision are being made that resolve conflicts or allocate benefits and privileges. Institution refers to an ongoing organization that performs certain functions for society. Another report by the National Bureau of Census shows that Texas is in the top 10% of citizens below poverty line. With such wealth inequality in Texas, is no wonder minorities tend to be less involved.
The legislative branch naturally reflects the democratic form of government. However, all three branches are considered weak, but compared to the three branches of the Texas state government, the legislative branch is less weak and the most powerful because of the broad authority it has been given. (laits.utexas.edu). According to the (tsha.utexas.edu) “Under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the legislature, as representative of the people of Texas, exercises plenary powers, limited only by the Texas and United States constitutions and valid federal laws. The legislature may exercise the state 's inherent police power to promote and safeguard the public safety, health, morals, and welfare; and, by nineteenth century judicial interpretation, is superior to local governments, which are regarded as "creatures of the state.
The framers of the Texas Executive established a system that was designed to check the powers of the government. As opposed to the US Constitution that vested the power of the executive in the president of the nation (Berry, 1385), the Texas Constitution sought to ensure that the state did not have the excess powers. As such, they came up with a plural system where a variety of individuals make up the executive branch of the state (Texas State Government at a Glance). While the governor of the state remains as the highest ranking officials in the state, they hold the least of powers in the plural system.
This exact issue is why we made sure that the constitution of 1876 gave the state government limited power because we feared big government telling us what to do. Finally, there have been many attempts to pass a new constitution in Texas. All, of the proposed constitutions, have failed because the people of Texas love to live by a simple motto “if it ain't broke, don’t fix it”. However, all of these arguments are pointless if we don’t know about our state constitutional
While the president can veto an entire bill the governor only has the power to veto a part of the bill. Another thing is that the governor cannot form cabinet and the president can. Yet governors still play an important role after all the restrictions. “But despite having fewer resources and more limitations, modern governors can be successful in implementing their priorities and policies.” (Texas Politics-
The Constitution of 1876 came from the result of the 1869 destruction Constitution. Edmund Davis a former union general, a Republican associated with the drastic faction of the party had governed under this Constitution. This Constitution had a reduced local government control giving the executive centralized power. What was believed to be a corrupt exorbitant administration led by Davis in everything you maintain this power and control of governor. Davis manipulated the Supreme Court to invalidate the new elected governor Richard Coke.
The particular condition that the Constitution of 1876 was drafted under was the government and overthrow of Edmund Davis (Harpham, Champagne 81). Some of the main principles behind the Constitution were popular control of state government, limitations on state government, strengthening the economy, and finally promotion of agrarian interests. Some of the more important aspects reflecting the political philosophy of the framers were the high value placed on individual freedom from government. As well as the lack of faith the framers had in the government. Under the Reconstruction Constitution of 1869, Edmund Davis governed.