From the Texas Tribune: Greg Abbott ran as a small-government conservative. But the governor’s office now has more power than ever.

Checks and balances don't work well in Texas.

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Research groups consistently rank Texas as a “weak governor” state because its constitution limits what the governor can do without legislative authorization. Executive officers such as the lieutenant governor and the attorney general are also independently elected, not appointed by the governor, further diluting the power of the office.

“The way the constitution is designed, unless it’s specified in the constitution, you don’t have that power. Period. And that’s why I think you can look at a whole variety of his actions as violating the constitution. He just doesn’t have it. He asserts it, and he gets away with it,” said James Harrington, a former constitutional law professor at the University of Texas at Austin who founded the Texas Civil Rights Project. Harrington initially filed a brief defending Abbott’s early use of pandemic-related executive orders limiting crowd sizes and the types of businesses allowed to remain open, but he said the governor’s later orders fell outside of the bounds of the law.

The weak-governor structure was created by the framers in 1876 who believed that Edmund Jackson Davis, a former Union general who led Texas following the Civil War, abused his powers as governor. A Republican who supported the rights of freed people, Davis disbanded the Texas Rangers and created a state police force that he used, at times, to enforce martial law to protect the civil rights of African Americans. He also expanded the size of government, appointing more than 9,000 state, county and local officials, which left a very small number of elected positions.

Currently, the governor’s office accrues power largely through vetoes and appointments. While the Legislature can override a veto, governors often issue them after the legislative session ends. The governor is the only one who can call lawmakers back.

During a typical four-year term, a governor makes about 1,500 appointments to the courts and hundreds of agencies and boards covering everything from economic development to criminal justice. The longer governors serve, the more loyalty they can build through appointments.

Abbott’s predecessor, Republican former Gov. Rick Perry, set the stage for building power through appointments. Over 14 years, Perry, a former state representative who became Texas’ longest-serving governor, positioned former employees, donors and supporters in every state agency.

Perry could not be reached for comment through a representative.

In contrast to his predecessor, Abbott, a jurist with no legislative experience, found other avenues to interpret and stretch the law. Abbott has benefited from appointments and vetoes, but he has also taken advantage of emergency orders and disaster declarations like no other governor in recent state history.

Disaster declarations are generally used for natural calamities such as hurricanes and droughts and are useful legally for governors who could face legislative gridlock or state agency inaction if going through normal channels. Abbott’s use of such tools has grown even as his party holds a majority in the state Legislature.

In his eight years as governor, Abbott has issued at least 42 executive orders. Perry signed 80 orders during his 14-year tenure, though they rarely brought controversy. He once required human papillomavirus vaccines for girls but backtracked after pushback from the Legislature.

“Rick Perry experimented with and developed a number of tools that former governors had,” said Cal Jillson, professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. “That he sharpened appointments would be one of those, executive orders would be another of those, the use of the bully pulpit would be a third. And Abbott went to school on that.”