Texas Politics Essay

Texas politics is long and at times very complicated, due to the amount of state constitutions they have gone through, especially the one we follow today. The first state constitution was in 1827 before Texas gained its independence from Mexico, due to the fighting and Texas achieving its independence in 1836 a new constitution had to be adopted. A few years later a new constitution was needed when Texas joined the United States in 1845. However, when Texas seceded from the United States at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, a new constitution had to be drafted. After the civil war in 1866, yet another constitution had to be written for Texas to re-join the union. Three years later during the reconstruction of 1869, Republicans took control

The way these documents were written in the 1800s, they are not written in a contemporary and clear language that we know of today. Sometimes these documents are ambiguous and can be misinterpreted differently. For example, in section 23 of the first article of the Texas constitution states that “Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.” (TX Const. art. 1, sec. 23) Many people today interpreted this as being entitled to have weapons and that the government does not have the right to come for them. Aside from having dispute with the government it causes arguments and misunderstanding between the people who believe in having weapons and people who are against it. Considering the state constitution was written over a hundred years ago, lots of things have changed since then when compared to the 21st century. For instance, now we have deadlier weapons that can cause more damage than it ever could, rather than in 1876 when Texas constitution adopted the amendment and weapons weren’t dangerous and abused as today. Another example of outdated of an outdated amendment is Marriage, section 32 under the first article, same sex marriage is prohibited. Most states have already ruled that it is unconstitutional to not allow same sex marriage, in Texas the