Government State Policy Essay

Submitted By Alealferez1
Words: 802
Pages: 4
Open Document
Alejandro Alferez
State Government
Mr. Michael Smith
March 25, 2013
How does the Governor affect Texas Policy?

Even though the governor does not have very influential powers, he or she can still affect policy enforcement and making. One of these powers is the power to appoint officers and control state agencies. By doing this he can appoint officials that are in accordance with his perspective and by controlling the state agencies he can modify the interest of them. In the other hand, the Texas governor is faced with the plural executive, meaning he or she cannot count on the loyalty, support, or cooperation of these department heads (a lieutenant governor, an attorney general, a comptroller of public accounts, a state land commissioner, an agricultural commissioner, the Railroad Commission, and the Texas State Board of Education), who may even sometimes belong to the opposition party.
Next, the budgetary powers of governors are usually very powerful and important in other states but not in Texas, the Texas governor's budgetary powers are extremely weak except for the line-item veto to veto part of the appropriations bill without vetoing the entire bill. The Governor delivers a budget message, but it has no binding authority. It is up to the Governor to persuade legislators to pay attention to his or her agenda. Law allows the Governor to depart from the budget by transferring money between programs or agencies to meet emergency needs, though such transfers must be approved by the LBB. The LBB can also initiate such transfers, subject to the approval of the Governor. Governors can try to modify legislative budget priorities after the fact by vetoing legislation at the end of the legislative process .Regardless the governor is not mandated by the constitution to submit a budget to the legislature. Another kind of veto is the general veto of any bill passed by the legislature. An override of the veto is possible but it is very rare since the bill passes through the governor’s desk weeks before the final session. From 1876 to 1968, only 25 of 936 vetoes were overridden and the only veto overridden in the last 40 years was in 1979 when Governor Clements had a veto of an insignificant bill overridden (the bill would have limited the ability of county governments to prohibit hunters from killing female deer). Thus, the governor’s threat to veto a bill is a strong bargaining tool to “convince” the legislature to amend the bill and make it more acceptable to the governor. If a governor neither signs nor vetoes a bill, it automatically becomes law without the governor's signature. This is in contrast to the process at the federal level, which in some circumstances allows a president to kill a bill without signing it or vetoing it. This process is called the pocket veto, and it is not available to Texas governors. But the veto is a blunt instrument, and some interpret its extensive use for budgetary reasons as a sign that the Governor is either too weak or lacks the political skill to influence the budget process in more direct
Show More

Related Documents: Government State Policy Essay

Sara Luois Essay

Sara Luois AP Government McElroy September 1, 2014 Pre-test 32% Post-test 84% 1. Federalism: is a way of organizing a nation so that two or more levels of government have formal authority over the same area and people. It is a system of shared power between units of government. a. Most nations do not have federalism as a common form of government: more nations usually have a Unitary Government: i. In which all power resides in the central government ii. American governments are unitary In respect…

Words 1155 - Pages 5

Essay History: Federalism and States

Federalism has been an integral part of the American system of government since its inception. Our Constitution divides governmental power between the national government and the state governments, giving substantial functions to each. As Frederick Ogg points out, the relation between these two centers of power is dynamic, not static, and "must be readjusted and reshaped by each generation to meet the changing needs of our society." In response to these changing needs, our federal system has evolved…

Words 2419 - Pages 10

What Role Should Religion Play in Government Policies? Essay

Political Science 1020E Professor Nigmendra Narain Term 1 Essay: What role should religion play in government policies? By Nivedita Sen Student Number: 250589199…

Words 2122 - Pages 9

US Fiscal Policy

Depression in 1929, the government relied on an approach known as laissez-faire. Laissez-faire allowed the economy to run its course without any government interference. However, when the Great Depression hit, the government knew that something had to be done in order to get a better control on the unemployment rate, the high inflation rate, and business decision making. With this came the U.S. Fiscal Policy. Fiscal policy is best defined as “the discretionary changing of government expenditures or taxes…

Words 1536 - Pages 7

Essay on Nations Stability

that the United States has been among the most stable nations in the world. Policy restraint in the United States is both a cause and a consequence of key cultural and historic features that have made the United States one of the most politically stable nations in the world. Great foreign and domestic strife could not change the most stable features of American political life and our politi-cal institutions. James Anderson, author of Public Policymaking, states the United States has four kinds…

Words 604 - Pages 3

Drug Policies Essay example

Paper 6 A policy issue that I am interested in is the issue of narcotics/drug policies. The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), headed by Assistant Secretary William R. Brownfield, advises the President, Secretary of State, other bureaus in the Department of State, and other departments and agencies within the U.S. Government on the development of policies and programs to combat international narcotics and crime. INL programs support two of the Department's strategic…

Words 443 - Pages 2

Comparative Method Essay

the comparative method and how can it be used to help us learn about the states? What is the difference between the Most Similar Systems (MSS) and Most Different Systems (MDS)approach? Give an example of the comparative method in response to a current policy problem in the U.S. The Comparative method is a learning approach based on studying the differences and similarities among things, in class we used this approach on states to determine if they are as similar or different as they seem. The Most…

Words 1367 - Pages 6

Social Policies Essay

Assess the Relationship between Sociology and Social Policy Social policies are areas of policy usually within a governmental or political setting. It can refer to guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect human welfare. Sociology has been greatly linked to the creation of social policy, even more so in recent years. For example, the influence of sociology led to the creation of the concept of marketisation within the school system in the early 1990’s by New Labour and the current…

Words 1401 - Pages 6

Federalism Vs Cooperative Federal Government

Dual Federalism was the policy of the nation for seventy years. It kept the nation and the local states remained fully separated during the time frame of 1789 to around 1860. The national government and the state government during this time seem to stay worlds apart. State government agencies were independent and they had powers to make decisions. However, the national government still had a finger on the pulse of the nation. Not like cooperative federalism (1930 – 1960) where there a fine line in…

Words 325 - Pages 2

Essay on Macroeconomics: Contractionary Monetary Policy

quarter of the United States workforce without any jobs. It also affected the political stability of many countries since our economy was affected. Economist realized after the immense impact of the recession that they needed to understand and learn how to prevent these catastrophes. So what they came up with were some policies and theories such as Monetary Policy, Fiscal Policy and Keynesian economics. Keynesian economics, according to British economist John Maynard Keynes, states that a depressed economy…

Words 648 - Pages 3