Texas government differs from other states in several structural ways at once: executive power is split among multiple independently elected officials instead of centralized under the governor, the legislature meets only 140 days every two years, civil and criminal appeals go to two separate high courts, and the state funds itself without a personal income tax. These features trace back to an 1876 constitution written to prevent any single officeholder or branch from accumulating too much authority, and they still shape how laws pass, how schools are funded, and how much say voters get over routine policy.
Executive Power Is Split Among Several Elected Officials
Most states give the governor broad authority to appoint and remove cabinet-level officials. Texas does the opposite. Executive power is fragmented among statewide officials who each win their own elections and answer directly to voters: the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller of Public Accounts, Commissioner of the General Land Office, Commissioner of Agriculture, and the three members of the Railroad Commission.1Texas Secretary of State. Statewide Elected Officials
The governor cannot fire an underperforming attorney general or comptroller. Each of these officials holds a separate mandate and a separate set of statutory duties. The Railroad Commission is a good example of how misleading Texas titles can be. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with railroads in practice. It regulates the oil and natural gas industry, pipeline transportation, natural gas utilities, LP-gas, and surface mining.2Railroad Commission of Texas. RRC’s Authority and Jurisdiction The name is a leftover from its 19th-century origins.
The governor does hold a line-item veto over the state budget, meaning individual spending provisions can be struck without rejecting the whole appropriations bill. The legislature can override with a two-thirds vote in each chamber, but because the governor often acts after adjournment, overrides are rare. Outside the budget power and the ability to call special sessions, the Texas governor has less day-to-day control over the executive branch than governors in most other states.
The Legislature Meets Only 140 Days Every Two Years
The Texas Legislature convenes in regular session once every two years for up to 140 days, always in odd-numbered years.3Texas State Law Library. 89th Regular Legislative Session Kicks Off Only three other states still operate on a biennial schedule. Most legislatures meet annually, and roughly ten operate essentially full-time.
Texas legislators earn $7,200 per year plus a daily expense allowance during session. That pay level signals a citizen legislature, meaning people who hold regular jobs and come to Austin periodically rather than career politicians. The compressed 140-day window forces an enormous volume of work into a short period, which magnifies the influence of the Lieutenant Governor, who controls the Senate calendar, and the Speaker of the House, who controls the House calendar. Bills that don’t reach the floor in time die.
Between regular sessions, the governor can call special sessions of up to 30 days each and has exclusive control over which topics lawmakers may address. A 2025 special session proclamation, for example, listed 18 specific items ranging from property tax cuts and flood relief funding to redistricting and hemp product regulation.4Office of the Texas Governor. Governor Abbott Announces Special Session Agenda Legislators cannot introduce bills outside the governor’s call, which makes special sessions a rare pocket of concentrated gubernatorial power in an otherwise weak-governor system.
Two Separate Highest Courts
Texas and Oklahoma are the only states that split their highest appellate courts. The Supreme Court of Texas hears civil cases. The Court of Criminal Appeals hears criminal ones.5Ballotpedia. Court of Last Resort Every other state funnels both types of appeals into a single supreme court. In Texas, two entirely separate lines of legal authority develop their own bodies of case law, with no mechanism for one court to overrule the other in its domain.
Both courts have nine members serving six-year terms, chosen through statewide partisan elections. Voters select the chief justice of the Supreme Court and the presiding judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals separately from the other seats.6Ballotpedia. Judicial Selection in Texas Midterm vacancies are filled by gubernatorial appointment subject to Senate confirmation, and the appointee serves until the next general election.
Partisan judicial elections are themselves unusual. Most states use some combination of appointment, legislative confirmation, merit-selection commissions, retention elections, or nonpartisan ballots. Texas applies partisan elections at every level of its judiciary, from local justices of the peace up through the two courts of last resort.
A Long, Detailed, Heavily Amended Constitution
The Texas Constitution, ratified in 1876, is one of the longest state constitutions in the country. It has been amended more than 500 times, with 547 ratified amendments as of 2026 out of more than 700 proposed by the legislature. That volume reflects the document’s design philosophy. Rather than granting broad authority and trusting officials to use it wisely, the framers wrote detailed policy restrictions directly into the constitutional text. Changing many of those restrictions requires a formal amendment.
Amending the Texas Constitution takes a two-thirds vote of all members in both chambers, followed by approval from a majority of voters in a statewide election.7Texas Legislative Council. Analyses of Proposed Constitutional Amendments – 89th Texas Legislature – 2025 Historically about 75 percent of amendments that reach the ballot pass. Texas voters regularly see long amendment lists on their ballots, sometimes covering matters as narrow as authorizing a specific county to issue bonds for a particular project.
Most other state constitutions provide broader frameworks and leave the details to ordinary legislation, which can be changed by a simple legislative majority. The Texas approach trades flexibility for public control. Updating routine policy can require a statewide election, but voters get a direct say on matters other states handle entirely through their legislatures.
No Personal Income Tax, Heavy Reliance on Property and Sales Taxes
Texas is one of a handful of states that does not levy a personal income tax. In 2019, voters approved a constitutional amendment making it nearly impossible to ever create one, elevating the policy from statute to constitutional prohibition. The state also has no traditional corporate income tax, though it imposes a franchise tax, often called the margin tax, on businesses.8Legal Information Institute. 34 Texas Admin Code 3-584 – Margin: Reports and Payments
Without income tax revenue, Texas leans heavily on two other sources. The state sales tax is 6.25 percent, and combined with local add-ons it averages about 8.20 percent statewide.9Tax Foundation. Taxes in Texas Property taxes carry much of the rest of the load. Texas has an effective property tax rate of about 1.36 percent on owner-occupied homes, among the top ten highest in the nation.10Tax Foundation. Property Taxes by State and County Homeowners in many Texas metro areas pay noticeably more in property taxes than homeowners in states with higher home values but lower tax rates.
This trade-off shapes the state’s fiscal character. The absence of an income tax is a recruiting tool for businesses and high earners relocating from other states, but it shifts a larger share of the tax burden onto consumption and homeownership. It also makes state revenue more volatile, since sales tax collections fluctuate with economic cycles more than income tax revenue does in diversified-tax states.
Counties Run by a Commissioners Court
Texas has 254 counties, more than any other state, and their governing structure is unusual. Each county is run by a body called the Commissioners Court, which sounds judicial but works as a combined executive and legislative authority. It consists of the county judge, who presides, and four county commissioners elected from separate precincts.11State of Texas. Local Government Code Chapter 81 – Commissioners Court
The Commissioners Court sets the county budget, levies county taxes (with at least three votes required to do so), maintains county roads, and administers county services. In larger counties, the county judge often has limited or no judicial duties and functions primarily as the county’s chief administrator. Texas counties also have relatively limited authority compared to counties in some other states. They generally cannot pass ordinances the way cities can, except in narrow circumstances involving unincorporated areas without a city government.
School Districts Redistribute Local Property Tax Revenue
Texas funds public schools through a combination of state appropriations and local property taxes, but with a redistribution mechanism that has no close parallel in most states. Known informally as “Robin Hood,” the system requires property-wealthy school districts to share excess local tax revenue with the rest of the state.
Each district has an entitlement under the state’s Foundation School Program. When local property tax revenue exceeds that entitlement, the excess is “recaptured.” In practice, nearly all recapture happens through districts purchasing attendance credits from the state, which effectively means writing a check back to Austin.12Texas Education Agency. Excess Local Revenue Recapture Districts can also meet their recapture obligations by contracting to educate students from less wealthy districts, but that option is rarely used. Recaptured funds flow back into the Foundation School Program to help fund education statewide. The system is politically contentious in fast-growing, high-value areas such as Austin and parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, where districts send back tens of millions of dollars annually while local taxpayers feel they are funding schools elsewhere.