Texas Economy, Culture and Constitution Worksheet

Texas Economy, Culture and Constitution Worksheet

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Question 1

When well defined, Political culture is a set of normative judgments and mutual perceptions held by people on the subject of its political system. As a result, the building blocks of political culture are the emotions, opinions, and beliefs of the individuals toward their government system. In other words, political science designates how culture influences politics. All political forms are embedded in a particular political culture. Its present use in political science commonly follows that of Gabriel Almond, but its roots as a notion go back at least to Alexis de Tocqueville.

According to political culture characteristics, each nation has its own political culture, which is widely shared values, norms, and beliefs that define the rapport between citizens to one another and the government and citizens. Views concerning economic life are part of the political culture since politics impacts economics (Calvert et al., 2020). In addition to the characteristics of political culture, it takes into account attitudes and beliefs individuals have about the political structure, including standard assumptions with reference to the manner that government works. It is also not monolithic in a way that it comprises of different subcultures based on group characteristics like social circumstances, race, and ethnicity, including dwelling in a certain part of the country or living in a particular place.

The political culture in Texas is a combination of individualistic and traditionalistic elements. The traditionalistic characteristics of state politics are typified by the long antiquity of the low level of voter turnout, one-party dominance in state politics, and social and economic conservatism (Hecht, 2019). Traditionalism and individualism make Texas a governmentally conformist state that is antagonistic to government doings, particularly government meddling (Romero, 2020). According to Texas political culture, the government is expected to stay out of individual dealings, and when it gets involved, it ought to be controlled locally.

Question 2

The Constitution of the State of Texas is a manuscript that forms the function and structure of the regime of the U.S. state of Texas and itemizes the fundamental human rights of the inhabitants of Texas. Texas Constitution has gone through more than a few several versions in keeping with Texas’ dramatic history. Below are the Texas Constitutions and their components:

1845: First State Constitution

After joining the United States, Texas revised its Constitution entirely. From the redrafting, it becomes more detailed and more prolonged. It is remarkable generally for establishing Texas’ school funding system and free public school system.

1861: Confederate Constitution

This Constitution was implemented when Texas separated from the union. It comprised mainly of revised terminologies to mirror the membership of the confederacy.

1866: Postwar Constitution

It is a temporal constitution adopted after the end of the Civil Warfare when this state was under the federal administration’s control. Its core impact was to grant civil rights to African-Americans and eliminate slavery. For the first time, it gave the administrator the authority to exercise a line-item veto over budget provisions.

1869: Reconstruction Constitution

It is remarkable since it was never completely adopted by the Legislature. The public ratified this version of the Constitution. It is distinguished for more overtly obliterating slavery and assuring civil rights to all people, in agreement with the Reconstruction Acts approved by Congress.

1876: Current Constitution

It created the pattern of long, restricting manuscripts envisioned to function as a check on state government power. It considerably limited the governor’s influences and proceeded into more considerable aspects on numerous comparatively petty issues. A lot of detail was projected to avert state administrators from taking advantage of imprecise language in order to take over local governance. This Constitution, in a primarily modified system, is still in control nowadays.

Question 3

The previous Texas Constitution has impacted the current Constitution whereby it has established the government’s purpose and structure. The legislature can now put forward changes to the Constitution. They made voters of Texas decide to choose whether to accept the recommended changes. Amendments are made through changes give in to the voters by consent of two-thirds of the members of each house of the legislature and ratified by a majority of those voting. The Texas Constitution of 1845 established the Permanent School Fund and created a public school system (Calvert et al., 2020). It was comprehensively influenced by political philosophy. The previous Constitutions reflect the culture and history of Texas, which represents in the current Constitution. With every earlier Constitution, Texas adopted the present Constitution.

Question 4

Several factors have made it difficult to revise the current Texas Constitution. One of the factors is the preservation of the Constitution. Archivists are trying their best as they can to preserve the current Texas Constitution. They consider it a Texas treasure; hence they want to protect and maintain it for the coming generations. Because of the spirit of the Constitution, it has become somehow difficult to revise the Constitution. It is unfortunate that Texas lawmakers don’t address the states’ need to modify the Constitution (Holler, 2018). Distaste for complex policy, competing party-political agendas, and the short time in session usually prevent legislative action on the need to revise the Constitution unless they are under court order.

Another factor is that the current Constitution accomplishes all of its purposes to the government. As a result, it makes it difficult to revise it since the administration sees no need to change it. Critics of the current Constitution are poorly organized, too long, very complicated, and prevent the government from addressing the challenges of an economically multifaceted, contemporary society. It is clear that the current constitutional change is required even though the attempts have failed. The Texas Constitution reflects the state’s dominant political culture, one that is suspicious of centralized power and hostile to the government. It makes it difficult to revise the current Constitution.

Question 5

The population of Texas has long been culturally diverse. The rapid population growth has been the main factor in diversity. This state has become increasingly ethnically diverse since 1990. The economy has remained dependent on gas and oil, and any fluctuation in oil prices has impacted the state. Oil and gas production gave economic diversity in Texas. The energy part is still projecting among Texas productions, as are agriculture, ranching, and agriculture-linked industries.

Texas population and economic diversity pose a challenge to the future of the state. Some of the likely difficulties include conflict and poverty, energy and environmental security, overall imbalances, economic exclusion, and state health crises. There will also be a problem of racial and ethnic distribution of teachers and students. Workplace discrimination, national origin discrimination, reverse discrimination, and disability discrimination are also likely to occur in the future due to the Texas economy and population being diverse.

Apart from the challenges, there are also benefits from such diversity. First, the diversified economy generates a maintainable cycle of economic doings where businesses incessantly grow larger and feed off one another as the economy develops and advances. It hence opens the doors for offering goods and services to the growing social needs of Texas (Romero, 2020). The diversity also teaches citizens of Texas to adjust and live in broad society. Someone knows how to behave with other individuals belonging to different cultures, creeds, and caste. The diverse employees possibly capture a more significant portion of the consumer market. Businesses can market from consumers from different ethnic backgrounds by bringing together people from different experiences and backgrounds in Texas.

Reference

Calvert, R. A., De León, A., & Cantrell, G. (2020). The history of Texas. John Wiley & Sons.

Hecht, N. L. (2019). Proposed Reforms to Texas Judicial Selection: Opening Remarks. Tex. Rev. L. & Pol., 24, 299.

Holler, A. (2018). Moore v. Texas and the Ongoing National Consensus Struggle between the Eight Amendment, the Death Penalty, and the Definition of Intellectual Disability. Loy. U. Chi. LJ, 50, 415.

Romero, F. S. (2020). POLITICAL AND POLICY DYNAMICS OF MUNICIPAL ANNEXATION IN TEXAS. Public Administration Quarterly, 44(2).