- plural executive: an executive branch in which the functions have been divided among several, mostly elected, officeholders rather than residing in a single person, the governor
- midterm elections: the general elections that are held near the midpoint of a president's four-year term of office, on Election Day on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Federal offices that are up for election during the midterms include all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives, and 33 or 34 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate. In addition, 34 of the 50 U.S. states elect their governors for four-year terms during midterm elections,
- Texas Constitution - Article 4:
- separate state wide elections: An office of the federal or state government that is voted on statewide.
- political ambition ladder: Political ambition typically means the desire for officeholders to run for a higher office or for those who do not hold office the desire to run. Having ambition is the precursor to exercising ambition; that is, actually running for office.
- agriculture commissioner: The Texas Commissioner of Agriculture is a state executive position in the Texas state government. The commissioner heads the Texas Department of Agriculture.
- attorney general: The Office of the Attorney General serves as legal counsel to all boards and agencies of state government, issues legal opinions when requested by the governor, heads of state agencies and other officials and commissions, and defends challenges to state laws and suits against both state agencies and individual employees of the state. These duties include representing the Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in appeals from criminal convictions in federal courts.
- commissioner of the General Land Office: a state executive position in the Texas state government. The land commissioner serves as the elected head of the Texas General Land Office (GLO).
The GLO's mission statement is: "The Texas General Land Office serves the schoolchildren, veterans, and all people of Texas by preserving their history, protecting their environment, expanding economic opportunity, and maximizing state revenue through innovative administration and prudent stewardship of state lands and resources."
- Permanent School Fund (PSF): a sovereign wealth fund which serves to provide revenues for funding of public primary and secondary education in the US state of Texas.[2] Its assets include many publicly owned lands within Texas and various other investments; as of the end of fiscal 2020 (August 31), the fund had an endowment of $48.3 billion.
- comptroller of public accounts: an executive branch position created by the Texas Constitution. The comptroller is popularly elected every four years, and is primarily tasked with collecting all state tax revenue and estimating the amount of revenue that the Texas Legislature can spend each biennium.
- Biennial Budget Review: Texas uses a biennial budget. The legislature must pass a balanced budget, and is prohibited from carrying a deficit over into the following year. The Texas Constitution further limits spending growth with a budget rule based on personal income growth.
- lieutenant governor: the second-highest executive office in the government of Texas, a state in the U.S. It is the second most powerful post in Texas government because its occupant controls the work of the Texas Senate and controls the budgeting process as a leader of the Legislative Budget Board.
- presiding office of the Texas Senate: The Lieutenant Governor of Texas serves as the President of the Senate. Unlike most lieutenant governors who are constitutionally designated as presiding officers of the upper house, the Lieutenant Governor regularly exercises this function. The Lieutenant Governor's duties include appointing chairs of committees, committee members, assigning and referring bills to specific committees, recognizing members during debate, and making procedural rulings. The Lieutenant Governor may also cast a vote should a Senate floor vote end in a tie.
- secretary of state: The secretary of state administers the Texas Election Code and maintains public filings; the officeholder is the keeper of the Seal of the State of Texas.[8] The Secretary of State also issues appointments for notaries public.
- governors appointment: The authority to make governmental appointments is one of the powers given to the Governor of Texas by the state's Constitution.
During a four-year term, the Governor will make about 1,500 appointments.
Most appointments are:State officials and members of state boards, commissions and councils that carry out the laws and direct the policies of state government activities;
Members of task forces that advise the Governor or executive agencies on specific issues and policies; or
State elected and judicial offices when vacancies occur by resignation or death of the office holder.
- chief elections officer in the state: The Secretary of State is the chief election officer for the State of Texas. The Secretary of State’s Elections Division provides assistance and advice to election officials on the proper conduct of elections. This includes hosting seminars and elections schools, providing calendars, ballot certification, primary election funding, and legal interpretations of election laws to election officials. We also provide assistance to the general public on voter registration and other election issues
- bureaucracy: a body of non-elected governing officials or an administrative policy-making group.[1] Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials.[2] Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution, whether publicly owned or privately owned.
- state agencies:
- boards and commissions:
- public policy: an institutionalized proposal or a decided set of elements like laws, regulations, guidelines, and actions[1][2] to solve or address relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception[3] and often implemented by programs. The implementation of public policy is known as public administration. Public policy can be considered to be the sum of a government's direct and indirect activities[4] and has been conceptualized in a variety of ways.
- Texas Department of Transportation: a Texas state government agency responsible for construction and maintenance of the state's immense state highway system and the support of the state's maritime, aviation, rail, and public transportation systems.
- Texas Health and Human Services:
- Railroad Commission: the state agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, gas utilities, pipeline safety, safety in the liquefied petroleum gas industry, and surface coal and uranium mining. Despite its name, it ceased regulating railroads in 2005, when the last of the rail functions were transferred to the Texas Department of Transportation.
- Texas Department of Criminal Justice: a department of the government of the U.S. state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails, and private correctional facilities, funding and certain oversight of community supervision, and supervision of offenders released from prison on parole or mandatory supervision. The TDCJ operates the largest prison system in the United States.
- State Board of Education: an elected executive agency of the Texas state government, responsible for managing the state's public K-12 education.
- elected board:
- Public Utility Commission of Texas: a state agency that regulates the state’s electric, water and telecommunication utilities, implements respective legislation, and offers customer assistance in resolving consumer complaints.
- appointed regulatory commission:
- merit-based civil service system: The merit system is the process of promoting and hiring government employees based on their ability to perform a job, rather than on their political connections.
- patronage system: In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party—as opposed to a merit system, where offices are awarded on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity.
- sunset review process: Sunset works by setting a date on which an agency is abolished unless the Legislature passes a bill to continue it. Sunset staff evaluates the agency and issues recommendations for positive change. The Commission considers the recommendations, hears public testimony, and decides on a package of changes to bring to the full Legislature.
- sunshine laws: regulations requiring public disclosure of government agency meetings and records. Sunshine laws require specific businesses and government agencies to maintain transparency and disclose their activities to the public. The primary objective of these laws is to prevent fraud, corruption, inequality, and to maintain high ethical standards within such businesses and agencies.
