Unit 1 Notes Government
A constitution is a written plan of government. The United States have written
two constitutions. The first constitution known as the Articles of Confederation
gave more power to the states. The second constitution was a constitution of
federalism. This is where the states and central government share the power. It
is made up of three branches of government, The Executive branch sees that the
laws are carried out, Legislative branch makes the laws, and Judicial branch
interprets the laws and decides how laws should be applied. Each of these
branches has separate powers to help prevent any branch from having too
much power. They also have the ability to check the other branches powers
through a system of checks and balances. The U.S. constitution now has 27
amendments. The first 10 amendments are known as the Bill of Rights which
protects specific rights of citizens. Texas has written several constitutions. These
were created in 1824, 1827, 1836, 1845, 1861, 1866, 1869, and the last written
in 1876. The Texas constitution of 1876 is similar to the U.S. constitution in that
they both have three branches of government, have a Bill of Rights, and allow
for amendments. The U.S. Constitution is different from the Texas Constitution
because it passes laws to run the states. The Texas constitution has over four
hundred amendments. The Texas constitution also allows for check and balance
for example the Texas senate has the power to impeach the governor for an
unlawful act. The governor can only sign a bill into law after it has been
approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The governor
can remove a judge from office who is guilty of misconduct and the governor
can veto legislation or use a line-item veto if the governor wants to reject one
point on the list on budget items. This constitutional power of the veto enables
the Texas governor to exercise the most control over the Texas Government.
The Governor however cannot appoint his successor because governors must
be elected to be head of the executive branch, They can however serve as head
of the executive branch as many times as they want as long as they are elected.
There terms of governor are for four years. Texas has rewritten their
constitution seven times. When they were part of Mexico, a Republic, joined the
U.S., part of the confederacy, twice during reconstruction and when
reconstruction was over.