Your explanation was excellent and satisfactory. Thank you! From where I'm sitting, any and all of my stipulations are academic in nature because as far as I can tell from your description, Texas has a form of governance which is essentially the worst of all worlds. A weak executive instead of a strong vigorous one, a strong legislature which is largely absentee and has centralized a lot of authority, and local governments which are not free to fully govern themselves locally because once the legislature is in session, it will screw with them for the lulz.

I will try to explain my viewpoint succinctly, and note that it isn't exactly applicable to all States everywhere, but it is definitely applicable to the Federal Government.

I don't see politician as a pejorative per se, but I do think that politicians as professionals have strong incentives to find stuff to do so they can show their voters that they are out there doing stuff, whether or not stuff needs to be done. What's great about the three-branch system of government is that even if you have a non-persistent central legislative branch, you can, in theory, have an active and vigorous Executive, or alternatively and practicing the principle of subsidiarity (or just Federalization really), have responsibility over a given thing handled by the lowest level of government capable of dealing with it, to the extent that it needs to be handled by a government at all anyway. Either way, you at least get to have active courtrooms available.

Communities can live, and let other communities live. The extended order of Liberty.

When you have an active and vigorous Legislature, and an active and vigorous Executive, you have two branches of government actively looking for things to do, so they can say to their voters "Hey, I'm out here doing these things and if you like what I'm doing, vote for me the next time around too!"

I have been questioning whether that is actually beneficial for society these last few months though, and to be honest, I'm leaning towards "No." I think the platonic ideal of a well functioning government is that it's there for the things you need it for, and no more. It still has the gun to your head taking tax revenue, but it puts it to use defending the Nation from actual (not abstract) threats, putting people in prison for a shorter list of crimes than we have now, building the roads and railways communities have decided they should have, and keeping the lights on in the Courts. (This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, just give you an idea where my mind is at lately).

When you break it down, for those kinds of jobs, you need construction workers and people signing off on the contracts. You need Judges and their clerks and bailiffs and some form of prison guard in the jails. You need a tax authority which means you need accountants and a Treasurer. You might need an Army at least sometimes, and you almost certainly need an active Navy if you're on the Ocean, and all the soldiers and sailors and airmen and crews this entails. Nowhere in there, do I see a role for an active and vigorous legislature other than to set the budget, raise the taxes it needs to support the budget, and make some bureaucrats very uncomfortable or remove them entirely when they abuse the powers of their office.

That's why we have a Civil Service (and a Military Service, and a Diplomatic Service), and why the President has the power to call Congress into session at the drop of a hat to do something that the President and his entire Executive branch doesn't have the vested Constitutional authority or budget to do on his own. What else is a legislature to do all day other than debate the merits of various lobbyist proposals, and step on the toes of governments lower on the totem pole, and pass out handouts to important power brokers and constituencies in their home districts like candy? I don't think it is meant to be a glorious job, and maybe it's not even meant to be a full-time job the way the Taxman or the Soldier or the Diplomat is supposed to be a full-time job.

I guess the long and the short of it is, it's a matter of incentives. If you're a full-time legislator, you will look for (and find!) stuff to do, even if it isn't the best use of public funds, because this job is what pays your bills. If you're not a full-time legislator, you at least have to consider the impact that legislation has on your own life when the legislature isn't in session.

I will say, I wouldn't wish for the governance structure that Texas seems to have, nor would I wish to inflict California's on anyone else. I appreciate the lessons on Texas tonight, it's given me a lot to think about.