Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The attack ad could write itself: On Gov. Rick Perry’s watch, Texas weathered a sexual abuse scandal at the Texas Youth Commission, fight clubs at state institutions for the disabled and deaths of kids monitored byChild Protective Services.

Grover Norquist once boasted about the need to shrink government so “small” it could be drowned in the bathtub. Here is the Norquist recipe: Tax cuts for the wealthy, plus budget cuts for state programs, plus hostility to responsible governance equals Grover’s Tub. Good governance was in Grover’s view, the enemy—and destroying it was Grover’s goal.

The headline in the San Antonio Express-News on July 13, 2008 read: “Troopers say they are just fatigued.” It was a telling story among a series of stories showing that the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) is in trouble.

In the story, troopers described an agency suffering an officer shortage and beset with grueling working conditions, many officers routinely working six or seven straight days and sometimes 10 or 11.

The White House on Monday turned to its favorite tool – the Internet – to bolster President Barack Obama's push for health care overhaul and challenge misconceptions about Democratic plans.

As senators worked feverishly to keep dozens of House bills from dying as a midnight deadline approached, legislative leaders expressed new confidence Wednesday that an impasse on windstorm insurance can be broken to avoid a special legislative session.