1. The Texas Bureaucracy I
GOVT 2306, Module 8

2. What is the difference between the first two?
Overview
The executive bureaucracy of Texas government includes more than 150 boards, agencies, offices, departments, committees, councils, and commissions.
Agencies with Elected Executives
Agencies with Elected Boards or Commissions
Agencies with Appointed Executives or Appointed Boards or Commissions
What is the difference between the first two?
An executive is a single person whereas a board or commission is a group.

3. Elected Executives and Commissions

4. Long Ballot Texans elect . . . Governor Lt. Governor Attorney General
Remember what this is called?
Texans elect . . .
Governor
Lt. Governor
Attorney General
Comptroller
Agriculture Commissioner
Land Commissioner
Three Railroad Commissioners
State Board of Education (SBOE)
Plural executive
Is this similar to the federal government? No

5. Some agencies are headed by individual administrators who are elected in the same year the governor is chosen (2014, 2018, etc.)
Elected Executives

6. Lieutenant Governor Succeeds governor Presides in Texas Senate
Co-chair of Legislative Budget Board (LBB)
Serves on Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB)
Who is this guy?
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick

7. Texas Attorney General
The attorney general is the state's lawyer, representing state government and its various components in court. Former AG Abbott made a name for himself by suing the federal government over healthcare reform, EPA enforcement of Clean Air regulations, and other matters.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. In 2014, Paxton, a financial adviser, was fined $1,000 for steering clients to invest in a firm in which he held an undisclosed financial interest. He is now under indictment for securities fraud.

8. Child Support Enforcement
The office of attorney general is the official child support enforcement agency for the state of Texas.

9. Attorney General Opinions
The Texas attorney general gives legal advice to state and local officials and agencies in the form of opinions. An attorney general’s opinion is a written interpretation of existing law. The attorney general issues opinions in response to a written request from certain state officials who are authorized by law to ask for an opinion.

10. What the AG is NOT
The Texas Attorney General is NOT a law enforcement official. The AG does not prosecute criminals. That is the responsibility of district attorneys who are elected at the county level.

11. Comptroller of Public Accounts
The comptroller is the state's chief tax administrator and accountant. The comptroller monitors compliance with state tax laws and collects taxes on behalf of the state.
Comptroller Glenn Hagar
is a farmer from Katy

12. Is it Comptroller Glen Hagar or Gomer Pyle?

13. State’s Banker
The comptroller is also the state's banker, receiving funds, assuming responsibility for their safekeeping, and paying the state's bills. When tax revenues flow in more rapidly than the state expends funds, the comptroller deposits the money in interest-bearing accounts to generate additional revenue for the state.

14. Comptroller and the Budget
The Texas Constitution requires the comptroller to estimate state revenues for the next biennium at the beginning of each legislative session. No appropriation bill may become law without the comptroller’s certification that it falls within the revenue estimate unless the legislature votes by a four-fifths margin to adopt an unbalanced budget.
In 2011, Comptroller Susan Combs badly underestimated future state revenues. Her underestimate contributed to major cuts in education funding.
Note: This is the basis for the balanced budget requirement in the Texas Constitution.

15. Commissioner of Agriculture
The commissioner of agriculture administers all statutes relating to agriculture and enforces the state's weights and measures law. The agency inspects and regulates a variety of items, including seeds, gasoline pumps, meat market scales, flower and plant nurseries, and the use of pesticides.
Is a gas station ripping you off? Contact the office of Ag Commissioner.

16. School Lunch Program
The commissioner of agriculture also administers the school lunch program, which is a federal program that provides free or reduced-cost lunches to children from poor families.
At the federal level, the USDA administers the school lunch program as well as the food stamp program.
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller

17. School Lunch Menus
Agriculture Commissioner Miller, declaring that parents should control school menus not the federal government, is allowing Texas public schools to bring back deep-fried foods, cupcakes, and sugary sodas to school menus.

19. Land Commissioner
The land commissioner is responsible for managing state land, leasing it for mineral exploration and production and for agricultural purposes. The agency also enforces the Texas Open Beaches Act.
What is the Open Beaches Act?
Who are these people?
Jeb Bush and his son, Land Commissioner George P. Bush

20. Open Beaches Act
The public... shall have the free and unrestricted right of ingress and egress to and from the state-owned beaches bordering on the seaward shore of the Gulf o Mexico ... extending from the line of mean low tide to the line of vegetation bordering on the Gulf of Mexico.

21. What You Have Learned
What state agencies are headed by elected executives?
What are the duties and responsibilities of each elected executive and the agency he/she heads?