Texas Legislature

“ The very 'confusion' which the Texas legislature and Supreme Court feared might result from review by many state courts of the Railroad Commission's orders has resulted from the exercise of federal equity jurisdiction. As a practical matter, the federal courts can make small contribution to the well organized system of regulation and review which the Texas statutes provide. ”

“ If the human beings in Texas are its citizens and constitute its State, the constitution of Texas is their creation and the legislature of Texas is the creature of that constitution. From the Texans, through the creation which is their constitution, that legislature derives its every power over the human beings in Texas and cannot have any such power except by grant from those human beings themselves. ”

“ If the Legislature provides the means to maintain the public faith, to defend the frontier, and sustain the government in all its departments, the Executive, faithful to the trust reposed in him by the people, will see to it, so far as his powers will permit, that the honor and interest of Texas do not suffer at his hands. ”

“ Any citizen of this State who shall, after the adoption of this Constitution, fight a duel with deadly weapons, either within the State or out of it, or who shall act as second, or knowingly aid and assist in any manner, those thus offending, shall be deprived of holding any office of trust or profit under this State. Section 6. In all elections by the people, the vote shall be by ballot, until the Legislature shall otherwise direct ”

“ No person who at any time may have been a collector of taxes, or who may have been otherwise entrusted with public money, shall be eligible to the Legislature, or to any office of profit or trust under the State government, until he shall have obtained a discharge for the amount of such collections, or for all public moneys with which he may have been entrusted. Section 21. No member shall be questioned in any other place for words spoken in debate in either house. ”

“ It is not unlikely that designing forces have organized and will be maintained at the Capitol which will test the wisdom, integrity and patriotism of this Legislature.
The laws enacted and the reforms wrought under the present administration in behalf of the great masses of the people of Texas have been under fire for nearly two years, and have [Pg 431] repeatedly received the emphatic endorsement of the Democratic voters of our State, and have been approved and re-affirmed by the organized Democracy in convention assembled. ”

“ No bill shall be considered, unless it has been first referred to a committee and reported thereon, and no bill shall be passed which has not been presented and referred to and reported from a committee at least three days before the final adjournment of the Legislature. Section 38. The presiding officer of each house shall, in the presence of the house over which he presides, sign all bills and joint resolutions passed by the Legislature, after their titles have been publicly read before signing; and the fact of signing shall be entered on the journals. ”

“ For the five-year period that begins on September 1, 2000, and for each five-year period that begins after that period, the legislature, during a regular session that is nearest, but preceding, a five-year period, may by two-thirds vote of the membership of each house increase the amount of the constitutional appropriation for the five-year period but may not adjust the appropriation in such a way as to impair any obligation created by the issuance of bonds or notes in accordance with this section. ”

“ No county shall have less than one (1) member on the Board of Directors.
(c) The Legislature shall provide for the holding of an election in each county proposing the creation of an Authority to be called by the Commissioners Court or Commissioners Courts, as the case may be, upon petition of five per cent (5%) of the qualified voters within the county or counties. The elections must be held on the same day if more than one county is included. ”

“ The following classes of persons shall not be allowed to vote in this State: (1) persons under 18 years of age; (2) persons who have been determined mentally incompetent by a court, subject to such exceptions as the Legislature may make; and (3) persons convicted of any felony, subject to such exceptions as the Legislature may make. (b) The legislature shall enact laws to exclude from the right of suffrage persons who have been convicted of bribery, perjury, forgery, or other high crimes. Section 2. QUALIFIED ELECTOR; REGISTRATION ”

“ That section provides, that 'all laws and parts of laws, now in force in the Republic of Texas, which are not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States, the joint resolutions for annexing Texas to the United States, or to the provisions of this constitution, shall remain in force, as the laws of this State, until they expire by their own limitation or repealed by the legislature. ”

“ These lands were provided by the Constitution of 1876, which said that one-half of the public domain of the state, alternate sections of railroad land, and all money from the sale of these lands should constitute the Permanent School Fund. An Act of February 23, 1900, gave the then remaining public domain to the Permanent School Fund, except for rivers, lakes, bays, and islands along the Gulf of Mexico. In 1939, the Texas Legislature dedicated the mineral estate of these rivers, lakes, bays and islands to the Permanent School Fund. ”

“ The reason for the struggle—the desire of some to reduce the amount of production and divide it among the producers—was solved as the Texas Legislature gave the Railroad Commission authority to ration production.
A number of major fields were discovered in the 1930’s, mostly in West Texas and along the Gulf Coast.
The next sensational discovery, however, came in 1948 in Scurry and adjoining counties. The discovery well in this field was brought in on November 21, 1948. This led to further exploration and further discoveries of oil in West Texas. ”

“ No one would buy land in Texas without having seen the land. You might buy land in a lake or in the bed of a river if you followed such a plan; you would at least have some one look up your abstract. But we permit our legislators to copy a Texas statute which may be twenty years old, may have been modified twenty-five times, may be entirely unsuited to our conditions and which may be in the end unconstitutional—we let our legislators incorporate such statutes in our statute books without a protest. ”