Essay on Texas Legislature: A History of Biennial Meetings Since 1845

Introduction

Texas legislature has been meeting biennially since the year 1845 since back in the 1800s, and it was challenging and dangerous for legislatures to travel again after the meeting (Albright, 2). It was agreed that the state would have longer legislative sessions, which were limited during the 1960 revision to regular sessions of 140 days and individual sessions of 30 days (Albright, 2). The governors were allowed to call for as many special sessions they needed. Due to the biennial legislature meetings, Texas has not been invulnerable from the budgeting challenges, which has made other states meet annually-reducing the number of countries with biennial settings from 37 to 4 states. There have been a number of attempts of trying to change the legislative meetings from biennial to annual since the factors that led to the consideration of the biennial meetings are no longer applicable in the current century. However, these efforts have not borne any efforts. This paper will explain why I support the Texas legislature changing its regular sessions from the biennial, part-time to annual, full-time sessions.

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Biennial Versus Annual Legislative Sessions

If the Texas legislature continues to have their meetings biennially, it will continue to face budgeting challenges that have pushed other states to change to annual sessions. Logically, it very hard to plan and project a state's expenses and assets (Albright, 2). It was easier to make decisions for one year rather than making decisions about what the legislature believes it is going to attain over the next two years in terms of revenue and what the state might need for the next two years. Making significant financial commitments and a budget that will stand for two years at a time when the economy is very unpredictable is a big challenge (Galbraith, 1). Therefore, annual budgetary plans and allocations are more straightforward, and consequently, the Texas legislature should adopt the regular yearly, full- time sessions.

With the scrapping off of the biennial legislative sessions, the need for special sessions ought to diminish. The reason for special sessions is to attend to emergency state legal matters such as the budget. Therefore, by the legislature meeting annually all legal needs will be addressed without any need of calling for individual sessions ("Our American States," 1). Correspondingly, through the Texas legislature adopting annual meetings over every other year's sessions, the assembly will have continuous legislative oversight of the government compared to when they meet biennially. This, as a result, will improve the Texas administrative accountability for the implementation of legal policies ("Our American States," 1). Therefore, by putting this factor into consideration, the Texas legislature should change from biennial, part-time sessions to annual, full-time meetings. Moreover, an assembly that meets every other year is unsuitable for dealing with multifaceted and constant legislative problems that keep confronting today's government ("Our American States," 1). With such difficulties and increased responsibilities of the council, which have become troublesome, they cannot be discharged biennially; hence calling for annual legislative session's adoption will work well for Texas. Additionally, the state with annual, full-time meetings is likely to respond more swiftly to new federal laws that need state participation compared to a country that has adopted a biennial legislative format.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Biennial sessions, when compared to annual legislative sessions, have more demerits than merits, and therefore yearly legislative sessions should be adopted. To make such a significant change by switching from biennial to annual, Texas will require a constitutional amendment.

Works Cited

Allbright. C. For Texas Republicans, a Biennial Legislative Means Less Government, 2019. Retrieved from https://reportingtexas.com/for-texas-republicans-a-biennial-legislature-means-less-government/

Galbraith, K. Biennial Blues? The Texan Tribune, 2010. Retrieved from https://www.texastribune.org/2010/12/31/defying-national-trend-texas-clings-biennial-legis/

Our American States. Annual Vs. Biennial Legislative Sessions. National Conference of State Legislatures, 2011. Retrieved from https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/annual-vs-biennial-legislative-sessions.aspx