The framers of the Texas Constitution could not have foreseen the expansion of authority that modern Texas society has required of the state's public bureaucracy. Despite belonging to a relatively weak government compared to other states, the Texas bureaucracy commands considerable resources, touches every citizen in multiple ways in their daily lives, and influences the course of economic and social development in the state.

Of equal concern to the framers was the accrual of power in the government, yet here again the framers would have been dismayed to see that the Texas bureaucracy has acquired considerable quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial authority, in addition to its core executive responsibilities. We have noted the limited time and ability of the legislature to spell out every last detail related to the implementation of the laws that it proposes in the Legislative Branch chapter. As a consequence, it frequently falls to the bureaucracy to assume all of the functions of government (legislative, executive, and judicial) in order to implement policy.

It is left to the bureaucracy and its experts on specific areas of public policy to fill in the details of legislation authored in the Capitol. This is commonly referred to as rule-making (as opposed to law-making, which is the responsibility of the legislature).

Since policy implementation can be exceedingly complex and require an extensive physical presence throughout the state, the bureaucracy is often also responsible for enforcement, also know as rule-implementation. When disputes arise over the rules that have been implemented, bureaucrats also make judgments about the correct and incorrect ways to interpret rules - a function we know as rule adjudication.

These dynamics have led observers to describe the implementation of public policy as composed of three basic activities that are roughly parallel to the functions of the three branches of government. Rule making corresponds to the legislative function of lawmaking. Rule implementation corresponds to the activities of the executive branch in carrying out policies and laws. Rule adjudication resembles the judicial branch's actions interpreting laws and resolving disputes.

As discussed above, all three of these functions are commonly brought together under the same roof of the specific bureaucratic agencies in charge of each area of public policy. The key deviation of this arrangement from the ideal of representative democracy, is that the vast majority of the hundreds of thousands of members of the bureaucracy are not elected, either directly or indirectly.