How much POWER does the Governor of Texas have?

The other day someone asked me if Bill White were elected Governor of Texas, would he be able to institute a state income tax.  The answer is a resounding NO.

The office of Governor is extremely weak in Texas. You can thank the Reconstruction Republican government after the Civil War (or as we southerner like to say, the "War Between the States") for that.  During Reconstruction the Radical Republicans took over the government in Texas and pretty much instituted Marshall Law.  The appointed governor at the time, Edmund J. Davis, was a Southern Unionist who fled Texas after it joined the Confederate States and eventually became a Union General.  A new constitution was written in 1869 that gave the Governor

power to appoint more than 9,000 offices, impinging on the independence of local government and the will of the people.

During elections in 1873, Democrats won back many elected offices, despite intimidation by the State Police.  The Governor's seat was won by Democrat Richard Coke, but quickly invalidated by the Texas Supreme Court (all Davis appointees).  Angry Texans refused to accept the decision and when General Grant ignored requests to send federal troops to help Davis, he reluctantly stepped down.  In 1876 a new Constitutional Convention was held, and devised a constitution that weakened the State Government to a shadow of it's former self.

Now the Governor's powers are limited to appointments to over 200 boards and commissions in Texas (approximately 3000 positions), mobilization of the Texas National Guard and Texas Rangers, and the line item veto.  Just about every other office besides the board and commissions are elected by the People. The Governor has to be a very good persuader to get the Legislature (the law making and budgetary authority) to do what he wants, but he has no formal power over them.

Most appointees have 6 year terms and have to be approved by 2/3 of the Texas Legislature.  Since a Governor's term only lasts for 4 years, if a new Governor is elected, he/she cannot appoint new commissioners, et.al., until their terms have expired.  In this way, the former Governor continues his legacy.

Due to Perry's longevity in office (10 years, longer than any other Texas Governor), all of the boards and commissions are filled with his "Posse".  This is where Perry's strength lies.  He also knows how to game the system.  If an elected official leaves office before his term expires, such as a Texas Supreme Court Justice (he's appointed 5 of them), Perry can also make an appointment to these offices.  He also bent the Legislature to his will by vetoing 82 bills (more than any other Governor in a single session) in his first year in office, pretty much invalidating the entire session.

Other people have asked me why the Governor's office doesn't have term limits.  (Perry has served 2 elected terms plus 2 years of Governor Bush's term when he left office to become President.)  No other Texas Governor has completed 2 consecutive terms in office.  So up till now, there has been no need for term limits.  But, I have a feeling, that there soon will be calls for an amendment to the Texas Constitution to remedy this situation.

If Bill White gets elected, he will be starting from scratch, and may have to wait awhile before he can make any appointments.  Also, since he didn't come up through the Legislature, he doesn't have the knowledge of the ins and outs of the system that Perry has.  As a State Representative, Perry served on two of the most powerful committees in the legislature (Appropriations and Calendars) where he learned the importance of timing in the use of the veto.

So, if you want a super weak Governor, versus a semi-weak Governor, Bill White is your man.

Rick Perry Walking the Tight Rope

Governor Perry has been walking a tight rope lately.  According to the the San Antonio Express-News, to  keep the party faithful happy he rails about the need for protection on the border, but he also needs to depend on part of the hispanic electorate, so he told a gathering of La Raza members that the Arizona law would not be a good fit for Texas.

But I think their reasoning is too simplistic.  Texas and Mexico are bound together by ties of history, geography and commerce that Arizona does not share.

On July 2, 2010 Texas Public Radio's Texas Matters broadcast a show honoring former Texas governor Dolph Briscoe.  Part of the show played some tape from an interview with Briscoe in 2004.  During the interview, host David Martin Davies asked Briscoe what he thought of the proposed Border Fence.  He said he didn't think it would work and it sends a negative psycholigical message: we're fencing you off we don't want you. 

Texas has always been closely tied to Mexico, at one time Texas was actually part of Mexico.  Texas also has a longer border with Mexico than any other state.  The Secretary of State is the Governor's chief liaison for Mexico and border affairs.  According to a speech given by Secretary of State Geoff Conner in 2003

The length of the Texas-Mexico border is around 2/3 of the total U.S.-Mexico border. Over half of all crossing points between the two nations are here in Texas. Mexico is our largest trading partner, accounting for almost half of Texas exports.

Not only do more than half of the border crossings exist on the Texas border, some very large Mexican cities also sit on or near our border.

Monterrey, just 2 hours from Laredo, Texas is the 3rd largest city in Mexico with almost 4 million residents. Ciudad Juarez (1.4 million pop) abuts El Paso (563,000 pop) and is the 8th largest city in Mexico. Nuevo Laredo with a population of 718,000 sits across form Laredo (221,000 pop) on the Texas side. Reynosa has 498,000 people and sits across from McAllen (106,000 pop), Matamoros with 422,000 residents, meets Brownsville (140,000 pop), Ciudad Acuna (145,000 pop) across from Del Rio (37,000 pop), and Piedras Negras (140,000 pop) across from Eagle Pass (22,000 pop).  In every case the city on the Mexican side is at least 2/3 bigger than its sister city on the Texas side.  The three Largest Mexican cities on Arizona border are miniscule by comparison: San Luis Rio (157,000) Nogales (193,000) Agua Prieta (68,000).

I saw a question on Quora asking why there were so many people crossing into the US when they saw the pictures of the bridges over the flooded Rio Grande in Laredo.  My answer, TO SHOP.  Ever since the passage of NAFTA, Mexicans have been able to bring more goods back home, because they were no longer considered contraband.  All of the Texas border towns and most of the cities in south Texas, probably in most of Texas, rely on Mexican Nationals to keep their retail economies running.  Free buses run continuously on the Mexico side to bring shoppers across the border to visit malls on the US side.  And if you shop in San Antonio, you run into Mexican Nationals everywhere talking on their cell phones and walkie-talkies, saying "hey Mom, I'm at Macys and they have a great sale", or "meet me at Marshalls in ten minutes."  If you work retail in SA and you don't speak Spanish, you are at a huge disadvantage.

We also have issues with Mexico over water rights.  Both the Falcon Resevoir and Lake Amistad lie astride the border pretty much half in Texas and half in Mexico.  The Falcon Resevoir runs about 30 miles along the border. During the flooding caused by Hurricane Alex, the release of the Amistad and Falcon dams was a joint decision by the US Parks and Fisheries, Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Mexican government.

I agree with the late Governor Briscoe, Texas does not want to send messages to Mexico saying we don't want them.  It would be bad for our economy and our way of life.

The Gulf Project

I am a believer in sound scientific approaches to problems.  The biggest problem with the BP oil spill is that they never really expected a drill failure, so they have no tested way of dealing with it.  All of the fixes being tried in the gulf right now are experimental, and in a way are a good testing ground for new approaches, but at what a terrible cost. 

I don't always agree with Governor Perry on his policies, but I think the Gulf Project is a great idea.  Perry has enlisted scientists, engineers, policy experts, researchers, and other state officials from NASA, Rice, Texas Tech, U of H, A&M, and other agencies to research and develop safer oil drilling techniques and to come up with a more effective response strategy to future oil spills.  Oil is a big industry in Texas and Perry is right on target to protect the industry in this proactive approach.

Strange in Texas

This story could easily go in the Strange in San Antonio blog.  Governor Perry, who loves to thwart the federal government, has been outmaneuvered by the US House of Representatives.  While approving an appropriations bill for the war in Afghanistan, they tacked on a rider to force Perry to use federal funds to hire new teachers. 

Seems back in 2009, Perry accepted federal funds for education, but then cut an equal amount of state funding for school districts, pocketing the money for state coffers.  Wonder if he used some of the money to pay for his rental mansion?  School districts in San Antonio are planning on cutting way back in hiring new teachers, could it have something to do with Perry's stinginess?

The $820 million dollars that will go directly into school district coffers is contingent on Perry signing off on not cutting state funding and not cutting the education portion of the state budget more than any other item.  Unfortunenatly I think the House just slapped Perry in the face with a white glove.  It's duelling time.

Perry living high on the Hog

Well,well,well, Perry says the state needs to tighten it's belt by lowering costs by 5%. Wonder if he's going to follow suit? Apparently his living expenses, financed by the state, are pretty high, about $600,000 over the last two years. But he claims he's lowering his expenses. Poor guy has to get by with only one chef instead of two!!!

Creative Solutions for Budget Shortfalls

Well, it turns out Texas is not in as good a shape as we thought. Instead of the projected $9 billion shortfall for the next legislative session, due to start next year, the amount has doubled to $18 billion. Texans abhor new taxes, so to even suggest this as a solution is political suicide.

So instead the Speaker of the Texas House, Joe Straus R-SA, is looking in to creative solutions such as unpaid employee furloughs and 4-day work weeks. The 4-day work week has some potential and has had good results at USAA and the city of El Paso. Instead of working 8 hours 5 days a week, employees would be at the job 10 hours 4 days a week and then a day off. This helps save on utilities, custodial services and gas for government vehicles.

Another solution in the works is allowing flexible class sizes for grades K through 4 instead of the mandated 22 students. As it stands now if 23 students show up another teacher needs to be hired and another class room set up. Teachers of course are against this idea, but would they rather be laid off?

Other ideas involve streamlining bureaucratic operations. I'm sure there are a lot of small fixes that could be found that could make a difference. For example, the University of Michigan decided to change all publications, memos, letters, etc that are printed by the University to use the Century Gothic font, which uses less ink than the standard Arial font. They figure this will save between $5,000 to $10,000 per year. This may not sound like much but lots of small changes like this add up.