phd ONLY
Shawna Richart
Discussion 3
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I believe that government bodies should always be looking for new ways to improve their effectiveness. For this to happen I believe that Texas should follow the lead of the other 46 states in the country and move on to meet in annual sessions instead of biennial sessions. Back in the 1960s, only 19 states met annually. Today Texas is only one of four states that continue to meet every other year.
Passing a new law is not a speedy process anyway, and with all of the complex and newly arising issues that are bound to surface every year as our society and industries change, I think that annual sessions should be a requirement to ensure that potential problems are being dealt with in a timely fashion. Texas, in particular, is too large of a state both economically and in size, that meeting only every other year is surely not enough to make sure that laws are passed as quickly as possible to keep the public safe.
We've repeatedly read in this class how much Texas is a state that inherently opposes too much government interaction in our lives and I wonder if this is part of the reason that this state has failed to move to annual sessions sooner. Perhaps they think that this change will mean more government involvement which is not always perceived as good. As far as the question of salary, the professor's original discussion topic stated that Texas legislators are poorly paid and it is a part-time position. I'm not sure that we need to increase the pay of legislators and require that they have more sessions. Rather, I think the issue is just how much time passes between sessions that should be changed.
As other states have done, if we could reach a compromise this would mean that Texas could continue to have a part-time legislature whose pay rate does not have to change. Over the course of two years, they would work the same amount. For example, instead of meeting 80 times over the course of one year, every other year, they would meet forty times every single year. I believe that this would be a good start to improving the effectiveness of the Texas legislature and we could gradually move forward from this point and consider making the position a full-time job with better pay if needed.
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Elena Mitchell
Discussion week 3
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I was surprised to learn that Texas has a part-time legislature that is poorly paid on top of that. It is counterintuitive to me. It makes me, as a member of the public, think that politics is not a serious matter in Texas. I consider any position in politics as a time-consuming serious job that is definitely full-time. I imagine many politicians invest quite a bit of over time in what they do. I never thought of politics as a hobby but as a laborious and demanding endeavor. Cutting in half the necessary time needed to efficiently serve the public and make changes in a timely manner leads to lower effectiveness and productivity.
Further, part-time job with low pay does not allow many politicians to sustain financial independence. Politics becomes selectively more attractive to affluent candidates who have no worries about the money, which leads to lopsided representation of the interests of the general public. Alternatively, not so well-to-do candidates are probably more inclined to either invest time into raising funds, accept bribes, or look for additional employment to supplement their income.
I believe that Texas' legislature should be full-time and be adequately compensated for their work in order for the politicians to be able to devote themselves to their duties fully and to concentrate on the tasks at hand and not split their attention and time searching for money. It should also attract candidates of all economic levels a little more evenly.Bottom of Form
