texas government students welcome as we continue to delve into the texas constitution and look at the texas constitution today we operate today under that constitution of 1876 the anti-e.j davis constitution the constitution designed to prevent the rise of another powerful governor such as e j davis the texas constitution today is comprised of essentially 16 articles over time 690 proposed amendments have been put forth by the legislator 507 of those have been approved by the electorate the texas constitution today built on the foundation of the constitution of 1876 is limited government on steroids again to prevent the rise of another powerful governor such as e j davis article one of the texas constitution is the texas bill of rights you'll recall that in the united states constitution the bill of rights is represented by the first 10 amendments to the united states constitution the drafters of the texas constitution put the constitution right up front in article 1. now in this week's module i had you look at the texas bill of rights because it is an extremely unique document in detail and in and in uh links uh the texas bill of rights in many ways goes above and beyond the federal bill of rights goes above and beyond the federal bill of rights which is one reason why i had you look at this remarkable document this week and it may be fruitful to take a few minutes and look at uh some sections of this thing section one of article one the texas bill of rights deals with freedom and sovereignty of the state texas is a free and independent state subject only to the constitution of the united states and the maintenance of our free institutions and the perpetuity i like that word the perpetuity of the union depend upon the preservation of the right of local self-government unimpaired to all the states local self-government yet i think the state of texas lately has had a little problem with local state government but nonetheless republican form of government is established in section two of the texas bill of rights all political power is inherent in the people that's what a republic is and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit the faith of the people of texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government and subject to this limitation only they have at all times the inalienable right to alter reform or abolish their government in such a manner as they think expedient hello john locke equal rights all free men when they form a social compact have equal rights and no men or set of men is entitled to exclusive separate public enrollments or privileges but in consideration of public services section 3a added november 7 1972 equality under the law equality under the law shall not be denied or abridged because of sex race color creed or national origin section 4 is interesting because it's blatantly unconstitutional section 4 is interesting no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust in this state nor shall anyone be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments provided he acknowledged the existence of a supreme being provided being he acknowledged the existence of a supreme being that's a violation of the first amendment of the united states constitution section 6 is freedom of worship all men have a natural and end of in the in the feasible right to worship almighty god [Music] according to the dictates of their own consciousness no man shall be compelled to attend erect or support any place of worship or to maintain any ministry against his consent no human authority ought in any case whatsoever to control or interfere with the rights of constants in matters of religion and no preference shall be ever given by law to any religious society or mode of worship but it shall be the duty of the legislator to pass such laws as may be necessary to protect equality to protect equally every religious denomination in peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship interesting now as we look on through the texas bill of rights i've got to find the one i want to talk about next because i never remember exactly where it's at it's way down here somewhere ah section 23 of the texas bill of rights the right to keep and bear arms we had that right under the second amendment of the united states constitution which is one of the most convoluted things ever written as we all know the uh second amendment to the united states constitution is written in 18th century gobbledygook in many ways i think section 23 of the texas bill of rights is far more clear under the texas bill of rights every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in lawful defense of himself or the state but the legislator shall have the power by law to regulate the rearing of arms with a view to prevent crime of course our legislator has now approved constitutional carry where you can carry a gun without any kind of permit which i think is a very foolish decision but uh section 23 dealing with the right to bear arms i think is quite a bit clearer than the second amendment to the united states constitution so that's a brief look at the uniqueness of article one and the texas bill of rights whoops article two deals with the powers and structure of texas government establishing the three branches establishing checks and balances and if you look at that closely you realize that separation of priors and checks and balances uh in the texas constitution are more prevalent than in the united states constitution in many ways article 3 is the longest article of the texas constitution dealing with the legislative department as with the united states constitution it is within the legislature that most of the power is uh enacted the pyre in texas is in the legislature finally we have set the senate at no more than 31 members and the house of representatives at no more than 150 members article 3 also sets significant limits on the power of the legislature limited government again we will spend significant time talking about the texas legislator later in the semester article 4 deals with the executive department remember because of ej davis the constitution of 1876 weakened the chief executive today texas has a plural executive an executive in which power is fragmented because the election of statewide office holders is independent of the election of governor and the governor doesn't have a whole lot of influence or authority over those members those other state office holders we will spend a great deal of time talking about the executive department later in the semester and how the plural executive has weakened the office of governor article 5 deals with the judicial department texas courts which again we'll spend a lot of time on later this semester one of the most unique aspects is that texas in essence has two supreme courts the texas supreme court which deals with civil matters and the texas criminal court of criminal appeals which deals with criminal matters we'll talk about these and other courts again later in the semester article 6 deals with suffrage who may vote in texas voter registration and selection of electors for president and vice president we are going to spend a bunch of time later in the semester talking about voting because as you know it's a very hot topic in texas right now article 7 deals with education calls for an efficient system of public free schools meaning publicly finance schools they're not free schools they're financed of course by school taxes right uh that is a requirement of the state constitution that we have a public uh school system dating back to the republic of texas the constitution has called for the establishment of two state universities under our current constitution it called for a university of the first class to be called the university of texas and an agricultural and mechanical college which becomes texas a m we're going to talk about education later in the semester as well and we'll talk about ut and a m in particular and how they're funded and how they came to be funded and why that is controversial in texas today we'll talk about the permanent university fund and the auxiliary university fund a little later in the semester articles 8 through 14 deal with various issues articles 8 through 14 are a little deceptive too but they deal with various issues taxation and revenue which we'll spend a lot of time on later in the semester is discussed in article 8. now i'll warn you there's no way to make taxation and revenue in texas interesting when we get to that presentation articles 9 and 11 deal with local government we'll talk more about that in detail later in the semester articles 10 12 13 and 14 have been heavily revised or possibly done away with entirely your textbook states these heavily revised articles deal with a series of specific topics railroads private corporation spanish and mexican land titles public lands article 10 empires the state to regulate railroads and to establish the railroad commission you know today the railroad commission has nothing to do with railroads and a lot to do with the oil and gas industry in texas article 12 empires the state to create general laws creating private corporations and protecting public and individual stockholders article 13 is entirely repealed and dealt with the 19th century issue of spanish and mexican land titles article 14 created the general land office that we'll talk about later in the semester article 15 deals with the process of impeachment removing public officials from office you'll remember governor jim ferguson was the only texas governor to be impeached convicted and removed from office article 16 deals with some general provisions it's also one of the longest in the constitution and it has no parallel in the united states constitution it's a catch-all article tackling a variety of issues ranging from official oaths of office to community property to banking corporation and stock laws to the election of the texas railroad commission to the state retirement systems here perhaps more than anywhere else we see the complexity and confusion reflected in the texas constitution article 17 deals which is really article 16 now deals with amending the constitution all constitutional amendments in texas no matter how minutial must be approved by the texas voter we will talk more about that later in the semester so we talk about the complexity confusion the antiquated nature the cumbersome nature the dysfunctional nature of the texas constitution yet efforts to rewrite the constitution recently have failed why well politics is a lot of it politics special interest and the system we currently operate under doesn't allow for an easy uh redrafting of the state constitution something needs to be done under our current constitution texas is extremely governmentally dysfunctional and i think that's only going to get worse over time as the state is forced to deal with increasingly complex issues that the innes inelastic nature the non-flexible nature of our state constitution hinders our ability to deal with new crises i think the higher grid question that came up last winter is a prime example of that we need a new constitution desperately but don't plan on seeing that constitution anytime soon in our next episode the professor and i will talk about the relationship between texas and the federal government as we move into chapter 3. you