This is provocative.
The author points to some recent Texas Supreme Court decisions and notes that they prioritize "liberty" over "democracy." Apparently the two concepts can contradict each other. He also suggests that the recently completed legislative session - partially by limiting local governments - undermined democracy in the state.
- Click here for the opinion piece.
The author points to some recent Texas Supreme Court decisions and notes that they prioritize "liberty" over "democracy." Apparently the two concepts can contradict each other. He also suggests that the recently completed legislative session - partially by limiting local governments - undermined democracy in the state.
- Click here for the opinion piece.
In Texas liberty trumps democracy. The Texas Supreme Court itself says so.
In a recent decision, three of the five Justice majority bluntly declared, "(O)ur federal and state charters are not, contrary to popular belief, about 'democracy.'" They are about "liberty's primacy."
The Justices concluded the Texas Constitution gives primacy to liberty because of the sequence of wording "That the great, general and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and established," is how the Constitution begins. The word "liberty" comes first.
Relying on the sequence of words to establish primacy could have gotten the Justices into trouble when it comes to the federal Constitution, a situation they adroitly finessed by quoting only part of the Preamble. "The federal Constitution, in the first sentence of the Preamble, declares its mission to 'secure the Blessings of Liberty,"" opined the Justices. But before securing liberty the Preamble lists several other objectives that would have primacy: "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, (and) promote the general Welfare."
Texas politicians love to sprinkle their orations with words like liberty and freedom but even they must concede that all societies establish formal and informal rules governing individual behavior and virtually all interfere to some degree with someone's freedom of action. No matter how extreme our libertarian bent, most of us accept the need for driving licenses and the restrictions one-way streets and stop signs impose. And however reluctantly we agree that the government can take our money even while profoundly disagreeing on how public money should be spent.
Most of us also accept that property rights are not absolute. Just because we own land doesn't mean we can build a 30-story building or a slaughterhouse in an otherwise residential neighborhood.
Who should make the rules? Again I believe most of us prefer that decisions be made closest to those who will feel the impact of those decisions that is, by local government. More remote levels of government should defer to governance closer to the people except in rare circumstances.
Keeping this framework in mind, how did the tension between democracy and liberty play out in this year's Texas legislative session?
Democracy came in a distant second.
