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.