Re: Legalization of Casinos in Texas

The legalization and implementation of casinos in Texas is not a bad idea as proposed by Jamilia’s Blog for a number of reasons. The main reason discussed in the article was money and economic stimulation through tax revenues generated by the hypothetical casinos. Apparently over 3 billion dollars is the amount of revenue generated by neighboring states’ casinos, which could be used to help fund schools, infrastructure and other social programs. Although this would be a great plan to generate tax revenue, I do not think having casinos in Texas would be the best option. If you stand back and look at the negative effects that casinos have on the population in the area, you might reconsider this proposal. Some negative effects include prostitution, robbery, drug dealing, and debt to name a few.  Gambling addiction is also a potential harmful effect that is not mentioned in this article that possesses the greatest threat to an area with a casino. At least with casinos in other states there is less of an incentive to go because of the distance/travel time. The distance also helps keep the other negative effects like prostitution to be more prominent other states with casinos because of the social environment that is produced by gambling. Although it does stimulate other states economies I do not think the good outweigh the bad when it comes to casinos in Texas. 

Gubernatorial Term Limit

In the great state of Texas we have a plural executive branch including the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller, Commissioner of Agriculture, Commissioner of Land, Railroad Commission, State Board of Education, Secretary of State and other appointed agency directors. This plural executive distributes power among the elected and appointed officials, and work independently from each other. The governor is the position I am going to focus a majority of my attention for the remainder of the article to discuss a topic that needs revision in our Constitution.

                The governor’s term in office was extended in 1972 from two to four years, which coincides with the length of the President of the United States. Unlike the President, the Texas Governor does not have a limit on the number of terms that he or she can be in office. This current state of term limits, or lack-thereof, should be corrected in the constitution to make constraints on the number of terms the governor can hold. The current state of the Texas Executive branch demonstrates the potential problems of the unlimited terms held by the governor. Rick Perry is the longest serving governor in Texas history with 13 years in office, which is a long amount of time to make executive decisions in my opinion. In the more current years he has made risky moves in his position of power that have been unpopular with residents in Texas (Presidential Campaign Ad). I am not opposed to Perry’s policies or decisions; however my opinion is small in a vast majority of diverse political views with a rapidly changing demographic in our state.

                A limit on the amount of terms held by governors that match the same duration of the United States President will be beneficial to the constituents of Texas. The limit allows a popular governor to last up to eight years which creates a substantial amount of time to implement policies, but not create a continuous incumbent figure.  

Re: Just Looking at the Voting Numbers

Political apathy is a major issue in Texas that needs to be addressed in order for the government to properly represent the ideologies of the people that inhibit our state. With a growing population and a changing demographical make-up of Texas there is a wide variety of political influences that are brought into our state as well. According to the Texas Secretary of State Website, in the 2012 Presidential election there was a turnout of 43.73 percent of the Texan voting age population compared to the national number of 58.2 percent. With such a low voter turnout this should raise concern for every individual participant in government which includes everyone that is eligible to vote. Unfortunately this is not the case and hundreds of thousands of political opinions are not voiced causing the small minority of voters to control the decision making in our government.

I agree that many people are apathetic and uninformed when dealing with political votes and governmental issues. I am amazed at the number of people that say Texas will always be a red state and they will not cast their opposite vote because it will not make a difference. If people were to voice their opinions in the form of a vote, especially with the overwhelmingly changing demographic in Texas, there may be a change that represents the population. Change does need to occur but it is a very difficult and rigorous process that needs a major event to evoke to cause a difference in our political environment.