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Flaws In The Constitution For The State Term Paper

¶ … flaws in the Constitution for the State of Texas and also compares it with a few neighboring states that experience the same problems in implementing the Constitution and has to constantly undergo revisions of the provisions that require it. Constitution of Texas

There is a never-ending debate over which amendments of the constitution of Texas need revision, either partly or completely. Legislation at state level make three kinds of mistakes when it comes to framing the constitution of a state on a more or less formal basis. The first one is that the reformers expect some kind of miracles to occur so therefore underestimate the value of the existing papers and overestimate the documents of other states forgetting that the U.S. constitution did not come into existence overnight but is a product of evolutionary hard work. Second reason, they choose to rewrite constitutions is because they think that the new constitution can help to reform the political infrastructure. Although, in reality the opposite happens. The third fault lies in the fact that it is assumed that if the majority of the political parties favor revision, the policy changes would benefit the state. What we need to concentrate on is the fact that the current constitution of Texas is not able to cater for an automated and effective state government.

The constitution of Texas was adopted in 1876 and since then has been revised 377 times. The constitution in many ways is ridiculous, and outdated, often proves to be trivial and sometimes...

What we should focus our attention towards is in understanding whether a constitution that is constantly being amended would really be able to produce a government that is less bureaucratic, less impertinent and less costly that the current or previous one. The answer is simple- absolutely doubtful!
The fifty states put together have generated over two hundred constitutions since 1776. If only the foreign documents are taken into account, then the U.S. governments have produced just as many constitutions as the rest of the world put together. With over two hundred constitutions produced, one would expect the Americans to excel at writing this kind of documents, however, the effort is dispersed between fifty states so the Americans who draw out the new constitution have rich heritage but very little practical knowledge about the work they are carrying out.

When the constitution needs to be redesigned, the Americans normally start out with a list of what is wrong in the constitution, they also look at the constitutions of other states for ideas and also use the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as a model to work with. The debates that are conducted prior to writing up a new constitution only help to destroy the reputation of the current one, so its never completely implemented and followed. This is the biggest mistake lawmakers commit. They should first look at…

Sources used in this document:
References

Donald S. Lutz, Cautions For Constitution-Makers

Texas Judicial Selection, available at http://www.ajs.org/js/TX.htm, accessed on: February 24, 2003

Undermining the Constitution - A History of Lawless Government, by Thomas James Norton - Chapter V, available at http://www.barefootsworld.net/nortonuc05.html, accessed on: February 24, 2003
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