Why does the Tx Constitution have so many similarities with the US Constitution? How many amendments have been made to each? What are three primary differences? In your opinion, which Constitution is better AND why?

 

The Texas Constitution draws from the United States its central guiding concept. Uh. Constitution. Representative democracy, common autonomy, limited government, and division of powers are reflected in both. But in several respects, there are significant variations in the texts.

Over its long existence, the Texas Constitution has been amended several times. While some changes have been trivial, several others have made substantial changes to the paper.

Both constitutions are good because it provides separation of powers but the Texas constitution is better as it is flexible hence it is easily adoptable to changes.

Step-by-step explanation

The U.S. and Texas Constitutions are identical documents in several respects. Both of them reflect the ideals of inclusive democratic governance, under which the people emanate sovereignty. Both include a bill of rights that protects civil liberty from government violations both have a House of Representatives and a Senate with a bicameral legislature. Both pursue a system of controls and balances and the separation of powers between some of the country's legislative, executive, and judicial branches... and both distribute government authority between the upper and lower government levels. Within the U.S. The States are subject to the federal government in the Constitution, and the counties are subordinate to the state government in the Texas Constitution. Yet the two constitutions couldn't be more different beyond these general characteristics. These variations derive from the fact that the two documents emerged out of somewhat different historical situations and were designed to substitute each one with the document with fundamentally opposite grievances. For the United States The problem with the earlier Articles of Confederation was that the government was too fragmented and not enough strong. To resolve these shortcomings and provide a degree of centralization and greater government authority, the U.S. Constitution was crafted. But this is exactly what was meant to reverse and prohibit the Texas Constitution. The U.S. Framers. The Compact wanted government action to be possible; the framers of the Texas Constitution wanted to paralyze state action.

The U.S Constitution is short and ambiguous, allowing the federal government to view the constitution narrowly, claiming implicit authority to resolve particular public policy issues, the Texas Constitution is lengthy, extensive, and includes several legislative clauses that clarify exactly what government is permitted to do. Public representatives in Texas do not have the option of reading the constitution in a way that will allow them to deviate from the basic wording of the text when public policy issues occur. First before they plan to operate from outside the detailed terms laid out in the fundamental law, elected authorities must change the constitution. The language positioning in each text is often revealing. Whereas in the United States, basic democratic freedoms The Constitution is often mentioned as revisions known as the Bill of Rights, and the very first clause of the Texas Constitution is a Bill of Rights.

Considering that the U.S. The Constitution establishes a unitary executive that concentrates executive power in the president, the Texas Constitution creates a plural executive that disperses executive power through numerous elected offices, thereby fragmenting the government executive branch and prohibiting any person or office from concentrating power over the executive branch. However one point of focus involves the ability of the chief executive to veto bills enacted by the legislature. The Texas Constitution's line-item veto requires the governor to veto particular items found in bills approved by the legislature for appropriations. However at the federal level, the U.S. The line item veto was held illegal by the Supreme Court, arguing that it violates the division of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The idea that a line-item veto is given by the Texas Constitution indicates an affinity for limited government and limited spending, even though it comes at the risk of giving the governor authority in a manner that the majority of the constitution is meant to prevent.

Legislatively, the U.S. has very little yet. A constitution which really restricts U.S. tax and spending policies Representatives and Senators are required to write laws. However in Texas, comprehensive revenue and budget control limitations greatly hinder what state lawmakers are currently empowered to write into legislation. Legislators, for instance, are legally barred from introducing a personal income tax or from allowing the state government to go into debt, and the constitution allows specific amounts of the state budget to be spent on specific policy areas, especially in the case of public schools and colleges, as provided for in Article 7. Additionally, the U.S. Congress is a trained full-time legislature that meets annually; Congressional representatives earn a money as elected officials. However the Texas legislature is a non-professional, part-time legislature who sits to 140-day sessions each two years. The $7,200 a year federally required pay allows members of the Texas legislature to make a living beyond politics.

The contrasts between the federal government and the state government may not be clearer judicially. With three tiers of courts-district courts, circuit courts, and the U.S.-the federal judiciary is clear and structured. A last word on both legislative and substantive issues from the Supreme Court. All federal judges are nominated, not elected, and justices are appointed for life by the Supreme Court, The Texas judiciary, in comparison, is complex and ambiguous. Six types of courts are set up under the Texas Constitution, each of which have parallel or overlapping jurisdictions. The Texas Constitution sets up two high courts, one for hearing civil cases and one for adjudicating criminal cases, compared to the Supreme Court of the federal system. Plus, all Texas judges must deal with democratic politics in the Jacksonian Democracy tradition and win their seats in partisan elections.

The constitutional amendment mechanism concerns a final difference of note between the U.S. and Texas Constitutions. It is incredibly difficult to amend the U.S. Constitution, but the nature of the text makes regular revisions unnecessary. Just 27 times has the U.S. Constitution been revised and 10 of those amendments (the Bill of Rights) is part of the founding document. The Texas Constitution, by comparison, is relatively easy to amend. Though it is very difficult to get a new constitutional amendment (in both houses of the legislature it needs a two-thirds majority), if a measure is accepted by the legislature, it succeeds relatively easily. A request to change the constitution will not be rejected by the governor and the proposal is adopted until accepted by a clear majority of the popular vote. Since constitutional amendments are always required to alter unnecessarily detailed state laws, amendments are common, with the Texas Constitution's total number of amendments now reaching 500.