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Texas Government and Federal Government
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Texas Government and Federal Government
Should individual states have more or less power compared to the federal government
when implementing laws dealing with topics such as the legalization of marijuana,
abortion, euthanasia or other related topics?
There exists a power imbalance between the federal government and the states. People
have accepted the fact that there exists such an imbalance between two bodies of ruling law.
James Madison Federalist No. 51 argues that people surrender their power to be divided into two
Governments. According to him, this will lead to a power balance resulting to different
governments trying to control each other. According to the constitution framers, Federal
governments are weak, and that's the reason they try to strengthen both the local and federal
governments. One of the main reasons for the strengthening of individual states is due the
weakness of the federal government.
According to the Texas Constitution, the Federal government has been given wide power
over local governments in some areas even though that power is constrained. According to the
constitution, the individual states has the right to be involved in any other area that does not
require the province of the Federal government. Individual states are mandated to ensure their
population's good health, security and welfare. Thus, states play a significant role in a
government. Due to these reasons, ninety-five per cent of criminal cases are heard in state courts.
From the above information, it is clear that the Federal government is more powerful than
individual states as stated in the constitution. For this reason, the Federal government has more
authority when it comes to enacting legislation on national issues such as legalization of
marijuana, abortion, euthanasia or other related topics. Firstly, important issues such legalization
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of marijuana need to be addressed, and if they leave it to individual states, it may require careful
consideration, more attention and analytical information because any slight mistake might lead to
the safety of the public being impacted (Cohen, Reingold, & Gostin, 2022). Therefore,
legalization of national issues such as abortion is a step-to-step process for it to legalize, and
thus, it requires the Federal government to implement it within the borders.
Explain your answer by referring to the Texas Constitution and discussing one example of
a power struggle that took place between the state of Texas and federal government?
Texas is the center of a conflict between the federal government and the state all over the
country. It is noted that the conflict is over who has more authority than the other and at what
time. The recently reported conflict is majority-Democratic criminal district attorneys in Texas
(KERA, 2023). Some of the senior prosecutors have claimed that they will not charge women
who seek abortion treated in a way that promotes gender equality (KERA, 2023).Those
declarations have, in turn, led conservative lawmakers in Austin to file several bills seeking to
curb the power of DAs. This led to a debate on where power should rest in the local-state
government.
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References
Cohen, I. G., Reingold, R. B., & Gostin, L. O. (2022). Supreme court ruling on the Texas
abortion law: beginning to unravel roe v Wade. JAMA, 327(7), 621-622.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2788711
KERA, B, J. (2023, EBRUARY 21). Power struggles between state and local officials escalate in
Texas — and across the nation. Houston Public Media.
https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2023/02/21/444328/power-
struggles-between-state-and-local-officials-escalate-in-texas-and-across-the-nation/
