Last Name. The Texas Constitution.

1 Name Tutor Course title Date The Texas Constitution Introduction In Texas, the constitutional government began operation when the state was still under Mexican rule. A Constitution refers to a document that is used to define the roles and responsibilities of a government. This document further puts limits on the powers of government; it does this by spelling out the dos and Don'ts of their governments. The Texas constitution was originally a document that was drafted in a hurry and incorporated large sections of the US constitution as well as some laws that belonged to the Mexicans. This was later to be redrafted to become, according to some scholars, one of the best constitutions in the country. This paper will discuss the history of the Texas constitution, an overview of the constitution and the amendments that have been made to date. The History of the Texas Constitution. The 1876 constitution was the seventh constitution of Texas. In 1836, a constitution that had been drafted in haste was made the constitution for Texas, which was by then a fledging republic. At this point in time the threat of a Mexican attack was imminent. This constitution had taken large sections of the US constitution and added some Mexican laws to it (Brown et al 60).

Nine years down the line in 1845, Texas drafted its first state constitution and this time care was taken unlike in the previous constitution. This constitution was adopted before the

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 2 annexation of Texas. This constitution presented the law of Texas in a simple yet straightforward manner. Due to its simplicity it was considered by some scholars as one of the best state constitutions. The 1845 constitution consisted of a preamble and thirteen articles. The bill of rights was article number one, showing the level of its importance. This document also contained different articles for the different subjects. For instance militia, slavery among others had been separated into different articles. (Besset et al 647).

The 1845 constitution was amended in 1861.This was as a result of Texas seceding from the union. The amendment in the constitution transferred the statehood of Texas from US to confederacy. The confederacy was defeated and this ushered the Texas constitution to a time of uncertainties. Due to this secession, the preamble in the constitution was changed. This was done in order to remove the language that talked about annexation to the US. Other changes that were made to the document included deleting US citizenship as a requirement for running for office as well as voting, the bill of rights was also rephrased to deny government authority, in addition, the oath of office was also changed (May 7).

Due to the defeat of Confederacy, all the states that had been confederates could only rejoin the union if they adopted new constitutions. This led to a new document to emerge from the 1866 constitution convention that made the declaration that the ordinance of secession was null and void. This document further agreed to abolish slavery and further provided freed men with some civil rights. These civil rights however did not include the rights to vote or right to hold office (May 8).

The radical republicans were not happy with the 1866 constitution. This led to another constitutional convention to be called in 1868.They passed some provisions that were then

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 3 bundled together and handed to an election that was known as the constitution of 1869.The provisions that were very radical were rejected by a majority of Texans (Kremer, Lewell and Prindle 40). In 1875, the constitutional convention wrote a whole new document. By this time it was democrats who had power in Texas and they undid the acts that had been made in 1869.The new document in effect displayed a lack of trust in the government that had been formed by the delegates. The powers and salaries as well as terms of office of the officials were slashed. This document was submitted to the voters and unlike the 1869 provisions, it was ratified the following year and named the constitution of 1876 (Kremer, Lewell and Prindle 41) The 1876 constitution is the operational constitution to date in Texas. It had tight restrictions and as such needed hundreds of amendments. This has made it to be considered as one of the most disorganized and confusing state constitution. This constitution has been amended more than 400 times to date. (Kremer, Lowell and Prindle 42)

An attempt was made in 1974 to draft a modern document. This was met with failure and there has been no attempt since then to replace the constitution (Kremer, Lewell and Prindle 42).

An overview of the Texas Constitution This document begins with a preamble which seeks to invoke blessings for the people of Texas. In addition to the preamble it also has a total of 17 articles. According to Brown Et al (81) in the 17 articles there are the bill of rights, articles on suffrage, and articles about the three states of government as well as provisions whose concern is the powers of both that state and the local government.

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 4 Article 1 of the Texas constitution is the bill of rights. According to Maxwell (60) this is highly regarded as it reflects the basic American culture and reflects provisions that exist in the US constitution. The bill of rights in the Texas constitution sought to expand the basic bill of rights and interpret the state provisions from the bare minimum that is in the US constitution. It guarantees some rights that have not been defined in the US constitution. For instance, Texas adopted an amendment to the provisions that prohibits discrimination based on Sex. Article 2 of the Texas constitution deals with the separation of power. This was done to prevent concentration of power to any one am of the state government. Power was divided between the legislature, executive as well as the judiciary. The legislatures role was creation of laws, the executive was mandated with carrying out the law and the judiciarys role was interpreting the law. The constitution also instituted a system of checks and balance; this means that the decisions made by one branch of government can be influenced by another branch. Article 3 is the longest article in the Texas constitution. It deals with the legislative branch of government. It separates the legislature to a two houses or bicameral body, which consists of a senate with 31 member as well as a house of representatives that has 150 members. The senators serve for a 4 year term and have got be duly elected while the representatives serve for two years. The Texas legislature is not allowed to call special sessions unless its for an impeachment. Article 4 of the Texas constitution deals with the executive branch of government. According to Maxwell (66), the executive branch of government is headed by a governor. The governor is a duly elected state official and serves for term of four years. Although the governor has been made to be the head of this branch, this article also provided for pluralism executive of

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 5 powers. In effect this meant that the power was divided among different state officials all of whom were independently elected. Article 5 of the constitution talks about the role of the judicial arm of government. According to the Texas constitution (22) the powers of the judiciary will be vested in the Supreme Court and district courts or in any other court as the constitution provides. The Supreme Court was to consist of three judges and the presence of two out of the three constituted a quorum. The judges term was also set as 3 years. The state was to be divided into convenient judicial district each with a judge who was to be appointed by the governor. The sixth article in the constitution of Texas is entitled suffrage. Suffrage means the right to vote. This is the one of the shortest article in the whole document. This article has been amended severally the voting age was changed from 21 to 18; the poll tax requirement was also abolished (Texas constitution 28). Article 7 of the constitution gives the governor rights to call on militia to execute the law of the state. Article 8 gives the House of Representatives the rights of impeachment. (Texas constitution 28)The other remaining articles were issue specific; they addressed specific issues like education. Taxation, private corporations, Mexican land titles, general provisions as well as amendment modes. The article on Mexican land titles was deleted in an amendment that was done in 1969 because its provisions were deemed as obsolete (Brown et al 80). The amendments made to the Texas constitution. By 2010 the Texas constitution had been amended more than 467 times. This has seen the constitution grow from a 28,600 word document to a more than 80,000 word document .This has made it to be referred to as the most disorganized constitution in the country(Brown et al 60).

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 6 According to Maxwell (71), the amendments in the constitution of 1876 were necessitating by the level of detail that is contained in that document. The amendments procedures require that proposal of constitutional amendments be made by two thirds of the membership of each house of the legislature, that is to say there has to be at least 21 senators and about a hundred representatives. Ratification of the amendments requires a majority vote from all the persons that are participating in the amendment, in either a general or a special election. In the quarter of a century that followed the 1876 constitution, amendments begun to be made. Some of the amendment proposals were minor while only a few were politically significant. According to May (18), between 1879 and 1899, a total of 30 propositions were submitted to the voters. They then ratified 17 of the propositions and the approval rate was 56%. The most important amendment according to May (18) was the ratification that allowed the legislature to create an agency whose role was regulating the railroads in Texas. This amendment was strongly backed by the farmers alliance. The Texas Railroad commission that was created was to become a powerful agency whose influence was felt in national and international circles. This was due to their acquisition of powers to regulate petroleum and natural gas industries. Another politically charged amendment that persisted till the 1970s was the prohibition issue. This amendment was defeated by the Texas people in 1887.In general most of the amendments involved education. Voters agreed with the increase in funding to public schools. This was done by increasing the state taxes and further introducing local school district taxes. The investment of school funds was also made flexible in this amendment (May 19).

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 7 In 1891, an amendment in judicial reforms was made and it sought to restructure the appellate courts. The voters further approved confederate amendments, this was to give the state permission to give aid to needy soldiers and also their widows (May 19). Between 1900 and 1910 further amendments were done. In 1901 an attempt to call a constitution convention was made by the legislature. This had been done with the aim of revising the constitution; no legislations were passed at this point. In 1902 a proposition seeking to make the poll tax requirement in first time voting was passed by the voters (May 19). Between 1910 and 1929 a pattern of proposition rejections was witnessed. Only 28% of the propositions were approved. Top among the major rejections was the 1919 proposition to allow women to vote which was rejected by the voters. In 1917 both houses approved an amendment that sought to place the referendum on a ballot on the basis of a conventional call. This was vetoed by Governor James Ferguson. Governor Ferguson was consequently impeached and removed and the new governor, William Hobby supported the constitutional revision. There was a light turn out as voter turnout was at 10% (May 19). Between 1930 and 1959 the revisions and amendments made were due to the effects of the prevailing situation both nationally and internationally. These were events like the great depression, World War II as well as the post war prosperity. There was great demand of government services and an amendment that was known as the good roads amendment was passed and it allowed for the state to finance construction of roads and highways by using a special tax that was to be applied on motor fuels(May 24). Before 1973, it was not possible for amendments to be submitted by a special session of the legislature. This was however changed when the constitution was amended in 1972.This

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 8 amendment made it possible for the submissions to be made by the special sessions on condition that the subject had been opened by the governor (Alvares and Polcheck 150) According to Maxwell (71) one of the recent and notable amendments in the Texas constitution is the same sex marriage ban. Due to the conservative attitudes of the Texans this proposition passed with a 76 percent win. Between 1980 and 2003 more than 200 amendments were added. According to Kraemer, Lewell and Prindle (51), Amendments have seemed as the only way to get anything done in government and hence they have been pursued relentlessly. This has been caused by the changing times and conditions have made it necessary to make changes to a constitution that has been termed as a highly restrictive one. Conclusion Although the amendments to the Texas constitution have made, the originally simple document to become a disorganized and complicated document. The amendments that have been made have helped Texas in both economic and social aspects. The suffrage amendments and the amendments that are made in the education sector have largely helped Texas in the transition to the 21 century.

Last Name. The Texas Constitution. 9 Works Cited Alvarez, Elizabeth and Plocheck, Robert. Texas Almanac 20122013.Texas: Texas A&M University Press.2012.Print. Brown, Lyle, Langenegger Joyce, Garcia, Sonia, Lewis, Ted and Biles, Robert. Practicing Texas Politics. New York: engage Learning, 2001.Print. Bessette, Joseph, Pitney, John, Brown, Lyle, Langenegger, Joyce and Garcia, Sonia. American Government and Politics: Texas Edition: Deliberation, Democracy and Citizenship. New York: Cengage Learning, 2011.Print. Kraemer, Richard, Newell, Charldean and Prindle, David. Texas Politics. New York: engage Learning.2009.Print. May, Janice. Texas State Constitution, the: A Reference Guide. United ingdom: ABC-CLIO, 1996. Print. Maxwell, William. Texas Politics Today. New York: Cengage Learning, 2013. Print. Texas. Constitution of the State of Texas. Texas: the Daily Republican Office.1869.Print. Wallace, Ernest and Ericson, Joe. CONSTITUTION OF 1876, tshaonline. Web. 13th July 2013.

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, Maxwell (71) (Alvares and Polcheck 150) May 24 (Kremer, Lewell and Prindle 40). Texas constitution