From the Texas State Historical Association: This Day in History #1

Edgewood v. Kirby filed:

On this day in 1984, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed a landmark suit against Texas education commissioner William Kirby in Travis County. In Edgewood ISD v. Kirby, filed on behalf of the Edgewood Independent School District, MALDEF charged that the state's methods of funding public education violated at least four principles of the state constitution, which obligate the state legislature to provide an efficient and free public school system. Initially, eight school districts and twenty-one parents were represented in the suit; eventually, sixty-seven other school districts and many other parents and students joined the original plaintiffs. The plaintiffs in Edgewood contested the state's reliance on local property taxes to finance public education on the grounds that property values vary greatly from district to district, thus creating inequality in education funds. The case took years to work its way through the courts, but in 1990 the Texas Supreme Court delivered a unanimous decision siding with the plaintiffs. In 1993, after several earlier attempts were declared unconstitutional, the legislature passed a school finance reform plan comprising several options for equalizing funding. In 1995 the Texas Supreme Court found the plan constitutional but ruled that the legislature still needed to work on equalizing and improving school facilities throughout the state.

America's Territorial Expansion Mapped (1789-2014)

Territorial History of the USA: Every Month for 400 Years

For our look at counties in 2306.

For more, click here.

Main points from 2306

For our review of a semester's worth of material today:

• The need for public education was written into both the Texas Declaration of Independence and the 1876 Texas Constitution. It explains why you have to take this class.
• The precise role of the states within the national governing systems was fluid from 1776 to 1789.
• In the U.S. Constitution delegates from the original states gave up some their claims to national powers.
• The U.S. Constitution carves out specific roles for the state to play in running elections and provides guarantees and obligations for them. It also establishes that new states can be formed and that they are to be organized into republics.
• With few exceptions, the United States Constitution allows the states to pass whatever policies it chooses.
• However, the Texas Constitution – independently – places limits on policymaking in the state.
• Most of the states after the original 13 were US territories prior to becoming states.
• Texas was never a US territory. This explains why it controls so much of its land.
• Expansion westward happened almost immediately after the Constitutional was ratified. By mid-century, all the territory that would become the lower 48 was acquired.
• The U.S. Constitution says nothing about cities.
• The precise relationship between the state and nation governments has been debated ever since.
• This involves debates over the meaning of the commerce and equal protection clauses among many others.
• Conflicts over those two clauses form the heart of the conflict between Texas and the national government.
• Major periods of expansion of national power over the states include the post Civil War era, The New Deal and the Great Society.
• The people who populated Texas came primarily from Southern, protestant slave states. This created conflict with the Mexican government.
• Political culture still helps explains the conflict between Texas and the national government.
• The state of Texas had several constitutions between 1824 and 1876. Each was a reflection on the politics and circumstances of that era.
• The Texas Constitution is quite long and detailed due to the amount of times it has been amended.
• The structure of the Texas Constitution is designed to place specific limits on what the state government can do.
• The design of Texas government – and the ideas Texans have about the relationship between government and the people – was heavily influence by the Jacksonian movement.
• The Texas Bill of Rights provides a more explicit set of guarantees of individual rights to Texans than the US Bill of rights.
• Cities are primarily economic entities, political entities second once they are granted governing authority by the state.
• Cities do not have an independent sovereign status – they exist because states allow them to.
• Counties serve as administrative units of the state.
• County officials elected locally.
• Key positions in all three branches of government in Texas are elected – this creates problems for the separation of powers in the state.
• The Texas Legislature only meets in session briefly every two years.
• Texas legislators are expected to hold other jobs or positions.
• There are significant limits placed on spending in the state, including pay as you go requirements that can only be surpassed if allowed by a constitutional amendment.
• Executive power in the state is divided into separately elected positions in order to distribute power.
• The Texas Governor is argued to be among the weaker among the states.
• Texas elects its judges – this is alleged to have consequences since judges need campaign contributions in order to run successful.
• Each state is in charge of its own election rules.
• These rules include the ability to regulate political parties and primary elections.
• Texas has open primaries – voters do not register as members of a political party.
• The national government can hear challenges to election rules based on the Voting Rights Act – which rests its authority on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
• - The U.S. government had no authority over suffrage until the 15th Amendment.
• - Texas has a tendency to be dominated by one political party.
• - Policymaking in the states – Texas included – tend to focus on the “police powers.”

Main points from 2305

This is intended to be less a review than a review of key points made over the course of the semester. We will review these today in class.

• An educated public is considered essential to the preservation of a democratic republic

• American governing institutions and systems are based on history dated back at least to the Magna Carta.

• A side effect of this history is a governing arrangement is individual liberty.

• The government is legitimized by its resting on the authority of the general population, but the people  do not rule directly. 

• Governments do three basic things: they make, execute and adjudicate the law. Tyranny occurs if these three powers are controlled by one entity. The point of the separated powers is to ensure that these powers do not accumulate.

• The people who wrote the Constitution took human nature into consideration in how they designed each branch.

• Any action of the national government has to be justified by the Constitution – either directly or indirectly. This is not true of the states.

• The United States Constitution is written with vague terminology, which makes it subject to interpretation. Battles rage over how the Constitution should be interpreted.

• The Constitution says very little about the internal workings of each branch. They have evolved considerably over the years, and continue to evolve. 

• Some phrases in the Constitution can be traced to Magna Carta and the British Bill of Rights. 

• The Constitution says nothing about political parties, but parties developed very quickly as effective ways to organize Congress and then to organize the electorate.

• The Constitution allows the states to make rules concerning elections, and until the 15^th Amendment states has full power to determine who go to vote. This also includes the power to design House districts, which has led to gerrymandering on the state level.

• The Bill of Rights applied only to the national government prior to the passage of the 14^th Amendment.

• The Bill of Rights is focused primarily on limited the substantive and procedural powers of the national government. 

• The rights established in the Bill of Rights are generally balanced against the greater interests of society. They can all be limited. 

• The First Amendment is focused primarily on limiting the ability of Congress to pass laws regarding religion and political participation.

• States have the power to pass laws which organize political parties, primaries and how electoral votes are awarded.

• The right to vote - suffrage - was very limited in the early years of the republic but has expanded gradually over time. This has occurred largely because the national government has forced the states to expand suffrage.

• Some of the most important – or consequential anyway – checks and balances are not written in the Constitution.

• Voter turnout tends to be low in the United States.

• The relationship between the national government and the states was impacted significantly by the Civil War and the Great Depression.

• Equality was not a dominant concept in the Constitution until the 14^th Amendment.

• The bulk of elections in the United States are winner take all. This led to the development of a two party system. While there are multiple parties in the United States, only two are competitive.

• The two major competitive parties are not monolithic – they are composed of various factions which compete to determine what the parties actually stand for each election cycle.

• The Supreme Court has made it increasingly difficult for Congress to regulate campaign finance.

• Not all interests are effectively represented by groups. The most powerful groups are those that can overcome the free rider problem.

• Interest groups are especially effective when they are able to work themselves into the decision making processes of each of the branches of government.

Review material for the 2306 final

Here's what you should prioritize as you prep for the test, but don't limit yourself to these.

I might get tricky.

Current events – 10 to 15 questions
- these will be based on items posted on the blog over the semester
A basic comparison of the Texas and US Constitutions
The content of the Texas Bill of Rights
Differences between the US and Texas Bill of Rights
The functions of local governments – both multi purpose and single purpose
Major periods in the shift from Democratic to Republican control in the state
The powers of the Texas Speaker
The powers of the Lieutenant Governor
The plural executive
The amateur legislature
The elected judiciary
The pros and cons of judicial elections
The influence of Jacksonianism on the design of Texas government
The impact of Supreme Court decisions on Texas
The organization of public education in Texas – ISD’s specifically
What is a city?
What is a county?
The chief elections officers of the state and of the county
The bill making process in Texas – constitutional requirements
Initiative, referenda, and recall elections statewide and on the local level
The impact of the Voting Rights Act in Texas
The constitutional powers of the governor
The content of the Texas Constitution – the headings of the articles
Qualifications to vote in Texas
The argument in the Texas Declaration of Independence
Suffrage in Texas – the impact of the national government on suffrage
State powers contained in the U.S. Constitution
Basic facts about the Texas Legislature
Primary elections in Texas
State and local sovereignty
Spending in Texas – which institutions get what? Where does the money come from?
The Economic Stabilization Fund
The role of the trial and appellate courts
The Texas Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals
The various designs of city governments
Types of single purpose governments
The powers denied to the states by the U.S. Constitution
The reserved powers
The budgeting process
The current lawsuit regarding cuts in education spending
How elections are managed in Texas
The voter registration process
The districting process – gerrymandering and its consequences
Committees in the Texas legislature
The selection of electoral college members in the state
The members of the temporary party organization
Term limits in Texas – who is and is not subject to it?
The State Board of Education
School Boards – Board of Regents
Home rule cities in Texas
At–large and single member districts
The White Primary
Police Powers
Political culture in Texas
The functions of each member of the plural executive
Party membership in the state legislature
Tactics the national government uses to compel the state to follow national laws
The governor’s influence on the bill making process
The politics surrounding the drafting and ratification of the 1876 Constitution
Rules regarding debt and the size of the budget in Texas
Tax policy in the state
Amendments to the Texas Constitution
County officials
The relationship between counties and the state
County chairs of the major parties in the state

Review material for the 2305 final

Think broadly about the following specific items. I might add a few things over the next week - so don't limit yourself to these items - but this list should help you perform at least adequately if you fully understand the concepts and terms below:

Current events – 10 to 15 questions pulled from the blog
The subject matter of each of the articles of the Constitution – especially the first 3
The delegated, reserved, implied, and denied powers
The police powers
The denied powers
The elastic clauses and their consequences
The purpose and content of the Bill of Rights
The basic principles within the Constitution
The impact of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
The equal protection clause
The privilege and immunities clause
The history of the equal protection clause, including Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education
The expressed and inherent powers of the president
The commander in chief powers
Judicial review
Gerrymandering
The mechanisms which separate - and maintain the separation - of powers
The origin and purposes of political parties
The party eras
The winner take all system and its consequences
The factions within the major parties
The marketplace of ideas
The role of free speech in a free society
The rationale behind public education
The self-evident truths
The substantive liberties
The procedural liberties
Agency capture
The definition of democracy
The checks and balances
Ideology
What are the respective bases of liberalism and conservatism?
Strict scrutiny, intermediate review, rational basis review
The argument contained in the Declaration of Independence
Key phrases in the Federalist Papers
Voter turnout – rates
The debate over interpreting the Constitution
Judicial Review
What is public policy?
The nature of religious liberty
The basic purpose and goals of social welfare, foreign, and economic policy
The nature of apportionment and the drawing of districts
The pros and cons of political parties
The role of state and local governments
The basic design of elections and appointments to national office
The development of judicial review
Rulemaking
Lobbying
Iron Triangles
The revolving door
Constitutional governments
Winner take all elections
The two party system
Debates over interpreting key phrases in the Constitution
The debate over the powers of the president
Unified and divided government
The basic principles in the Magna Carta
The basic principles in the British Bill of Rights
Baker v Carr
The unitary executive