Introduction
The changes to the Texas Constitution are being implemented rather often. A majority vote can only approve them in a statewide election. In 2017 and 2019, the voters’ number of amendments has changed, which directly influenced the passing of laws (Patrick et al., 2019). One of the implemented changes not a long time ago concerned some small Texas towns that have trouble finding anybody to serve as a municipal court judge.
Main body
The Texas Constitution forbids a person to hold more than one paid public office at the same time. There is a list of exceptions, for example, for members of the military, reserves. However, a few years ago, there has been a new exception to the law, which concerned judges in small towns, where there may not be many lawyers willing to serve. The special case would allow one person to serve as a municipal court judge in several small towns. However, some cities elect their municipal court judges, and the exception does not cover those elected ones. This year, a new resolution H.J.R. (“House Joint Resolution”) 72, to extend the more-than-one-city exception to elected municipal court judges was approved (Patrick et al., 2019). The article would consider all the benefits and drawbacks of such a decision.
In 2019, the legislature authorized H.B. 1717 along with the part proposed by H.J.R. 72. The law will be enacted on January 1, 2020, but only if the voters approve the constitutional amendment (Patrick et al., 2019). The bill is designed to make an exception in the law and allow a person to hold the municipal judge’s office for more than one town at the same time. This would help small cities in acquiring judges and lawyers easier. Nowadays, many urban units of local government cannot allow having a municipal judge, which might pose a severe problem. There are lots of domestic violence, minor and major offenses in such places, which is hard to regulate without a judge.
The number of Democrats seemed to favor this decision because it had allowed local municipalities to have their judge. Moreover, the local authorities tried to move this law forward because it made their life more comfortable. However, some Republicans were against creating a new exception to the old law. The cities’ residents had also seen this regulation as something wrong because allowing a person to hold elected office could destroy the single-office rule and create several other problems.
As the law’s supporters mentioned, Proposition 1 would make access to qualified judges for all cities easier. This amendment could be an extension of the current law because when a local court does not have qualified judges, society’s negative impact could soon follow. Proposition 1 would make the judging system in the Texas State more effective and efficient, beneficial to small rural towns. The state would have to pay for judicial training, which could benefit more than just one small town. Furthermore, the smaller cities do not possess enough people who are willing to serve as judges there.
However, at the same time, as critics of the law mentioned, Proposition 1 could create several potential problems. For example, it would make another exception to the constitutional law against specific elected individuals who try to hold more than one government-paid public office. That could create a space for further exceptions and, therefore, liquidate the old law altogether. Moreover, the critics have also mentioned that if judges would be allowed to work in more than one court, they could not give each court adequate focus. Therefore, their words completely contradicted the terms of the supporters.
If I were a state legislator, I would also dismiss Proposition 1 because it requires high implementation costs. Moreover, if the state had to pay for more than one judge’s office, they could lose a significant sum of money. Furthermore, if the judicial system indeed exacerbates because judges lose their concentration on one particular place, the voters will lose their trust in the judging system altogether. Therefore, as a state legislator, I would vote strictly against the new amendment. For the state, it is somewhat risky, and the risks are indeed very high.
However, as a voter, I would be for Proposition 1 because it sounds incredible on the paper. It does not describe the amendment’s risks, the potential losses, and the worsening of the judging system. The formulation of Proposition 1 sounds as if the voter is going to save the small towns from lawlessness and chaos. Nevertheless, it is not entirely accurate and sometimes even faulty.
Despite the advertisement of the first amendment, it had failed during the process of voting. Critics had pointed out that the change proposed by it could be done without the unnecessary interferences in the Constitution, by city and county governments. In my opinion, the critic’s point of view ended up being the right one because the proposition had several risks to the budget. Moreover, the amendment had several flaws and could have allowed eradicating the prohibition, which would harm the judging system.
Conclusion
To conclude, I think it was for the best that the first proposition failed, because, it had unjustified risks. Furthermore, although it allowed one judge to have several government-paid offices, it had created conditions for destroying the existing prohibition. Thus, one judge would be divided in their attention towards the places they have to be in. In my opinion, it would also hurt the whole Texas State system, which is unwanted.
References
Patrick, D., Bonnen, D., Archer, J. (2019). Analyses of proposed constitutional amendments. Texas Legislative Council, 86th Regular Session. Web.