Bad prospects for future campus carry?

[74novaman]

I frequently hear that the Governor can't do this or can't do that. Why do we have a Governor, what can he do?

Sometimes, a knowledge of history is useful. You must remember that the Texas Constitution was rewritten in1877 at the end of the reconstruction era. The problems caused by the government imposed on the state by the federal government was very prominent in the minds of the people at that time. They wrote the Constitution to help avoid some of the problems.

Some of the problems that the people wanted to avoid were caused by a traditional strong governor. So our Constitution was written with a weak governor and more of the power went to the Lt. Gov. One example of a traditional power that our governor does not have is the power to pardon. In Texas, the governor can only issue a pardon if it has been reviewed and recommended by the Board of Pardons and Paroles first. if you watched the recent news from Mississippi, then you saw an example of the problems our legislators avoided.

The Lt. Gov. is the most powerful man in Texas politics if they know and care to use their power. The Lt. Gov controls the legislature very well, with committee appointments and so on. The Gov. makes some of the administrative appointments but not all of them.

When it comes to making laws, there is really very little the Gov. can do. He might use some of his bully pulpit power, but that is it.

Fantastic summary. As a History major, I approve of this post.

[Charles L. Cotton]

Frontal assaults on campus-carry are not going to work and it is too costly in terms of political capital. In my opinion, there's a better approach that will put universities/colleges in a position where they will choose to allow carrying in school buildings by CHLs. (They already can do this by written policies or specific written approval.) I've already written the bill, but we'll have to see if this is the approach taken in 2013.

Chas.

[NEB]

Charles, do you really think any colleges/universities will voluntarily choose to allow any type of firearm carry on their campuses?

[Originalist]

I bet if you made it a condition of funding/tax breaks/etc, they would.

[apostate]

I like the idea of yanking their authority to have a campus PD unless they allow campus carry.

It makes complete sense. After all, if the campus is so safe there's no need for me to carry, then there's even less need for them to have their own police force. The school can hire somebody for $10/hour to hand out parking tickets, and if there's a serious crime, the local city cops or county sheriff can handle it. That goes double for ISD PDs.