One-Party Rule Is Legacy of Texas Constitution, Speaker Says

RRDC speaker Dr. John Booth, professor emeritus of political science at UNT (right), with RRDC Co-President Jane Scholz (photo by Sara Shibley)

Jane Scholz

The State of Texas today is rooted in the Constitution that state leaders wrote in 1876, which, though modified, is still in force, Robson Ranch Democratic Club (RRDC) members learned at their February meeting.

The club also planned its March meeting to focus on candidates for Denton City School Board and bond issue elections in May.

Member Stan Brein will lead a discussion about the impact and importance of school board elections. That meeting will be at 6:30 p.m. in the clubhouse on Thursday, March 23. All Robson residents are invited to attend.

An open house for all Robson residents is planned for late spring.

Our February speaker, Dr. John Booth, professor emeritus of political science at UNT and a frequent OLLI lecturer, talked to RRDC about the history of the state’s governmental system that was formed immediately after Reconstruction following the Civil War. He tied the thinking behind that document to the course of Texas governance in the nearly 150 years since it was written.

When the Constitution was written, there were two million people in Texas. Today there are more than 29 million, but we have the same basic constitution, now one of the longest and most amended in the country at 87,000 words, he said.