Opinion ID: 895269
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Police power is an attribute of sovereignty, but sovereignty ultimately rests in the people of the State of Texas. [32]

Text: The Texas Constitution places limits on government encroachments, and does so on purpose. Our Bill of Rights is not mere hortatory fluff; it is a purposeful check on government power. Everyday Texans, and the courts that serve them, must remain vigilant, lest we permit boundless police power, often couched in soaring prose, to abridge our Constitution's enduring principles of liberty and free government. [33] As Justice Brandeis warned in his now-celebrated Olmstead dissent: Experience should teach us to be most on guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. [34] Shortly after the Federal Constitution was approved in September 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote James Madison from Paris, advocating a Bill of Rights and also voicing confidence that the people would be the best sentries against overreaching government: [I am] convinced that on their good senses we may rely with the most security for the preservation of a due degree of liberty. [35] Jefferson was right. We are our own best lookouts against invasions, however well-intentioned, that siphon our due degree of libertysiphoning that often occurs subtly, with such drop-by-drop gentleness as to be imperceptible. To be sure, Members of the Texas Legislature have sworn to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State, [36] and they doubtless believe their enactments honor basic constitutional guarantees. I never second-guess the Legislature's motives and goodwill (and have never needed to); we are blessed with 181 lawmakers who serve Texas with full hearts. [37] But where the Constitution is concerned, the judiciary's role as refereeconfined yet consequentialmust leaven big-heartedness with tough-mindedness.