Texas Constitution:Article III, Section 44: Difference between revisions

Texas Constitution:Article III, Section 44 (view source)

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 The Republic of Texas constitution (1836) did not have a similar provision. However, the State of Texas's first constitution (1845) did. Article VII, Section 7 read: "The Legislature shall provide by law for the compensation of all officers, servants, agents, and public contractors, not provided for by this constitution; and shall not grant extra compensation to any officer, agent, servant, or public contractor, after such public service shall have been performed, or contract entered into for performance of same; nor grant by appropriations or otherwise any amount of money out of the Treasury of the State to any individual, on a claim real or pretended, where the same shall not have been provided for by preexisting law: provided, that nothing in this section shall be so construed as to affect the claims of persons against the Republic of Texas, heretofore existing." The state's next three constitutions (1861, 1866, & 1869) each contained a similar provision. Note that the clause regarding employment was added in 1876.
-The Texas Attorney General, in Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. [https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/1939/gm0632.pdf#page=2 O-632] (1939), opined that: "It is settled law that Section 44 of Article 3 prohibits the Legislature from appropriating State money to any person or corporation on any claim, unless, at the very time the appropriation is made there is already in force some pre-existing valid law constituting the claim the appropriation is made to pay a legal and valid obligation against the State. . . . Public offices and officers being peculiar creatures of law, their powers and duties are necessarily defined and limited by law. It follows that a public officer has authority to make for the State only such contracts as he is expressly or impliedly authorized by law to make. If, therefore, a public officer makes a contract purporting to bind the State, and in making such contract, he exceeds the limits of the authority conferred upon him by law, the contract is void and does not give rise to such an obligation as would form the basis of a judgment against the State in event the State should permit itself to be sued."
+The Texas Attorney General, in Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. [https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/1939/gm0632.pdf#page=2 O-632] (1939), opined that: "It is settled law that Section 44 of Article 3 prohibits the Legislature from appropriating State money to any person or corporation on any claim, unless, at the very time the appropriation is made there is already in force some pre-existing valid law constituting the claim the appropriation is made to pay a legal and valid obligation . . . . Public offices and officers being peculiar creatures of law, their powers and duties are necessarily defined and limited by law. It follows that a public officer has authority to make for the State only such contracts as he is expressly or impliedly authorized by law to make. If, therefore, a public officer makes a contract purporting to bind the State, and in making such contract, he exceeds the limits of the authority conferred upon him by law, the contract is void and does not give rise to such an obligation as would form the basis of a judgment against the State in event the State should permit itself to be sued."
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