American Government Chapter 4
State and Local Government
Objectives
Evolution of states and local governments
Different types of Local governments
Grassroots power and politics
Local finances
Evolution of states and local governments
states are the basic original units of American govt.
but local governments are creation of state governments
therefore state laws govern local governments
initially, state and local govt.
did not always meets the needs of the people because
they used to be part-time governments
but demands for urban services have changed local govt.
to full-time govt. since the 1960s
Recent trends as of 1960s --> is to enhance the powers of
= governors, = legislatures, = and the courts in order to meet
the needs of the people
Trends before 1960s
legislative districts were mal-apportioned & were not
representative of the heavily urban populated areas.
The Supreme court rulings of:
a) Baker v. Carr. (1962); Westberry v. Sanders (1964) applied
the principle of equality of congressional districts to states
that each legislative district within a state should have the
same size of population to be in accordance with the 14th
Amendment
b) Reynolds v. Sims (1964) applied the principle of one-person-
one-vote to the states in accordance with the 14th Amendment
c) but Kilgarlin v. Martin (1965) applied this principle of
one-person- one-vote to TX.
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