Article VII, Section 2 of the Texas Constitution

As amended November 8, 2011:

All funds, lands and other property heretofore set apart and appropriated for the support of public schools; all the alternate sections of land reserved by the State out of grants heretofore made or that may hereafter be made to railroads or other corporations of any nature whatsoever; one half of the public domain of the State; and all sums of money that may come to the State from the sale of any portion of the same, shall constitute a permanent school fund.

Editor Comments

As adopted in 1876, this section read: "All funds, lands and other property heretofore set apart and appropriated for the support of public schools; all the alternate sections of land reserved by the State out of grants heretofore made or that may hereafter be made to railroads, or other corporations, or any nature whatsoever; one-half of the public domain of the State, and all sums of money that may come to the State from the sale of any portion of the same, shall constitute a perpetual public school fund."

The section has been amended once. The amendment clarified the section's reference to the Permanent School Fund.

Attorney Steve Smith

Recent Decisions

None.

Historic Decisions

  • Hogue v. Baker, 45 S.W. 1004, 1005-06 (Tex. 1898) ("Const. art. 7, § 2. The plain purpose of the section is to declare what shall be the school fund. Lands theretofore set apart to that fund are preserved to it, and it is further declared that one-half of the public domain shall constitute a part of the constitutional dedication. In our opinion, it fixed the right of the school fund in one-half of the unappropriated public domain, but left the legislature, as we have previously intimated, with extended authority over the segregation of that interest by partition of the lands or of their proceeds. It gave to the school fund the right to an equitable half of the public domain, and in so far the provision executed itself.")

Library Resources

Online Resources