2.6: Conclusion

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The United States Constitution sets in motion the creation of a highly complex federal governing system composed of one national government, fifty state governments, and over 90,000 local governments. Texas’s government exists within that context. The state’s responsibilities to the national government, as well as to the other forty-nine states, are laid out in it. In addition there is the understanding that as long as the state complies with certain constitutional requirements— such as the requirement to ensure the equal protection of the law to all persons in their jurisdiction and refrain from policies that are best implemented on the national level—they are free to do as they wish.

It is worth noting that Texas has been influential in federalism’s evolution. The administrations of both Roosevelt and Reagan contained Texans, and the state had considerable influence in both presidencies. In fact, each was initially elected to office with Texans as running mates. Roosevelt ran John Nance Garner, who was from Uvalde and was the first Texan to hold the office of Speaker of the United States House of Representatives. He helped push New Deal legislation through that institution. Thirty years later, another Texan—Lyndon Johnson, who had initially run for office promoting the New Deal—would use his political skills to expand the New Deal with legislation he dubbed the Great Society. Reagan would run in both 1980 and 1984 on a ticket with Connecticut transplant George H.W. Bush who had already established himself as a founder of the modern Republican Party in Texas and a leader of the effort to draw conservative Democrats across the aisle.

As political control of the national government shifts regularly from one faction to another, the relations between the different levels of government, and among the states, is in flux. Conflict is inevitable. The only change is the nature of the conflict at a particular moment in time. The more you understand the basic rules regarding federalism, the more you can understand the nature of whatever conflict is at hand, and how it can be resolved.