Texas Government 2

Administrative State Assignment

As we have learned, the Texas Legislature only meets for a few months every other year. Accordingly, a lot of the decision-making in state governments is delegated to the administrative bureaucracy.

In modern times, though, the legislature has take more care to see that administrative rulemaking does not take place behind closed doors. Just as the federal government has the Federal Register, where proposed federal rules are published for public comment, Texas has the Texas Register.

The Texas Register is published weekly by the Texas Secretary of State, and contains a variety of proposed and final state agency rules, as well as emergency rules, notices, and official legal opinions from the Texas Attorney General.

To see how this works, go to the Texas Register website. Look at the June 26, 2015 issue (the current issue as I write this assignment). At the top, you’ll see  an “Attorney General” section where there are some requests for legal opinions. Next, you’ll see a section on “Proposed Rules.” These are rules being proposed by various state agencies, and public comments are generally invited. Under “Texas Animal Health Commission,” look for a proposed rule entitled “Fever Ticks.”