Transcript constitution - HCC Learning Web

Chapter 19
The Texas Constitution
American and Texas Government: Policy and Politics, 10/e
Neal Tannahill
Case Study:
Public School Funding in Texas
• Almost everyone values high-quality education. From
political decision-makers to business leaders, school
officials to parents, and the school kids themselves,
good public education is seen as a necessary
ingredient in personal and public success.
• However, as this interesting case study illustrates, it
has taken a huge constitutional debate through the
court system and the legislature to try to figure out
how to pay for high-quality education for Texas’
public school students.
Case Study:
Public School Funding in Texas
• Consider:
– Historically, public school funding has been based on local property
taxes.
– While the average Texan paid almost $1,400 in property taxes to
support public education, there is considerable disparity in financial
resources among school districts.
– The Texas Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1989 that the Texas
system of financing public education was unconstitutional in Edgewood
v. Kirby.
– Property-rich school districts have the capacity to raise many times
more revenue than property-poor school districts through local property
taxes.
Case Study:
Public School Funding in Texas
– In response to the Edgewood case and in an effort to equalize school
funding, the legislature eventually established a system where property
tax rates are capped and wealthy districts are forced to transfer some of
their revenue to poorer districts.
– Critics call the system the “Robin Hood Plan.”
– In 2005 the Texas Supreme Court again declared the Texas system for
funding schools unconstitutional, claiming that elements of the Robin
Hood Plan amounted to a statewide property tax that is not permitted
under the Texas constitution.
– Texas has until June 1, 2006 to fix the system.
– Governor Perry has said he will call the legislature into special session
to deal with the issue.
– The Texas Constitution requires that all people be treated equally and
that the education system be efficient.
State Constitutions
• A constitution is the fundamental law by which a state or nation is
organized and governed.
• State constitutions may not conflict with the U.S. Constitution.
• Federal courts interpret the U.S. Constitution to allow substantial room
for development of state constitutional law in ways that do not conflict
with the U.S. Constitution and in policy areas that are not preempted
by federal legislation.
• State constitutions differ from the U.S. Constitution in several respects.
• State constitutions may be based on different philosophies of
government.
• In contrast to the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions have a quality
of impermanence to them.
• Most state constitutions have more amendments than the U.S.
Constitution.
• Finally, state constitutions are on average three times longer than the
U.S. Constitution.
The Background of the Texas Constitution
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Texans adopted their first state constitution in 1845, when the Lone Star State
joined the Union.
In 1850, Texas amended the state constitution to provide for the election rather
than appointment of state judges and most executive officeholders.
This change reflected the principle of Jacksonian democracy.
When Texas joined the Confederacy in 1861, the state changed its constitution.
In 1866, with the war lost, Texas rewrote its constitution once again in hopes
of rejoining the Union under President Andrew Johnson’s reconstruction plan.
Under occupation by Union troops, however, Texas was forced to write a new
state constitution, the Constitution of 1869.
For most white, ex-Confederate Texans, the Constitution of 1869 represented
defeat and humiliation.
Defenders of the Davis administration argued that the policies adopted by
Governor Davis and the Republican majority in the state legislature were an
appropriate effort to help the state recover from the Civil War.
Nonetheless, the association of the Texas Constitution of 1869 with
Reconstruction guaranteed strong Democratic support for writing a new
document.
Overview of the Texas Constitution
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The state’s current constitution was written in 1875 and ratified in 1876.
The largest organized group of delegates at the convention was the Texas
Patrons of Husbandry, better known as the Grange.
The Grangers had two basic goals: to restrict the size and scope of state
government and to control the excesses of big business.
– The convention restricted the authority of every branch and unit of Texas
government.
– A second major goal of the Granger-dominated convention was to control the
excesses of big business.
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Although the Texas Constitution written in 1875 reflected the political
concerns of rural-oriented Texans, it was a document that was not far out of
step with other state constitutions adopted in the late nineteenth century.
Although the Texas Constitution is considerably longer than the U.S.
Constitution, it includes a number of features in common with the U.S.
Constitution: a bill of rights, separation of powers with checks and
balances, and bicameralism.
The Texas Constitution also includes features not found in the U.S.
Constitution.
Constitutional Change
• Change Through Amendment
– Through the years, amendments have produced a number of major
changes in the Texas Constitution.
• First, the legislature and voters have amended the constitution to
strengthen the authority of state officials, especially the governor.
• Second, amendments have been added to enable state government to
promote economic development.
• Third, the legislature and the voters have approved a series of amendments
that have, in effect, resulted in the abandonment of the state’s traditional
pay-as-you-go philosophy of state government.
– In practice, the amendment process is time-consuming, and the
electorate is often apathetic.
– In Texas, some critics of the amendment process believe that the
legislature sometimes words amendments with an eye toward deceiving
voters.
Constitutional Change
• Change Through Practice and Experience
– Not all constitutional change is the result of formal
constitutional amendment.
– Many of the fundamental features of American national
government have developed through practice and
experience.
• Change Through Judicial Interpretation
– Furthermore, constitutions change because of judicial
interpretation.
– State courts in Texas have begun to play an increasingly
important policymaking role through the interpretation of
the state constitution.
Constitutional Change
• Constitutional Revision
– Constitutional revision is the process of drafting a new constitution.
– Many critics of the Texas Constitution believe that Texas should have a
new state constitution.
– In the late 1990s, two powerful members of the Texas legislature
proposed a new constitution that would increase the power of state
government.
– This was the first significant attempt at constitutional revision since the
mid-1970s.
– However, the recent effort did not gain necessary momentum during the
1999 session.
– It seems unlikely that Texas will have a new constitution any time in
the near future.
Individual Rights and the Texas
Constitution
• Civil liberties concern the protection of the individual from the
unrestricted power of government.
• Throughout most of this century, whenever individuals and
groups have sought relief from state laws and actions that they
considered infringements of individual rights and liberties,
they have turned not to state courts for protection under state
bills of rights, but to the federal courts and the national Bill of
Rights.
• Today, however, civil-liberties lawyers, criminal defense
attorneys, and minority-rights advocates believe they can no
longer count on the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on their behalf.
Individual Rights and the Texas
Constitution
• In America’s federal system, states and localities must grant
their residents at least as many rights as those guaranteed by the
U.S. Constitution (as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court).
• If state and local governments so chose, however, they may
grant their residents more rights than afforded in the U.S.
Constitution.
• As the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the individual-rights
guarantees of the U.S. Constitution more restrictively, state
constitutions, as interpreted by state courts, have come to play a
more prominent role as defenders of individual rights.
• In Texas, state courts have relied on the Texas Constitution to
expand civil liberties in several policy areas involving the legal
principles of equal protection of the law and due process of law.