Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Payday lending is a lucrative and growing industry, which, this year, is expected to generate $7 billion in fees off of $49 billion in loans. But the cost can be steep. In Houston, lenders charge about 9.9 percent interest and at least $20 for every $100 borrowed. If the loan can't be paid within two weeks, fees and interest roll over. The annual percentage rate can exceed 1,100 percent.

For thousands of Texas homeowners, the check isn't in the mail. Almost 6.5 percent of the state's mortgage holders are late with their monthly payment, the latest survey finds. That's higher than the national loan delinquency rate of 5.12 percent,

The truth is that there’s no difference in principle between saying that every American child is entitled to an education and saying that every American child is entitled to adequate health care.

A record number of Americans are without health insurance, according to new U.S. Census Bureau statistics released Tuesday. The number of people without health insurance coverage increased from 44.8 million in 2005 to 47 million in 2006.

Despite all the talk about diet and exercise, obesity rates went up in 31 states last year. Texas had the 12th-highest obesity rate – 26.3 percent of its adult population – up from 25.8 percent in 2004 and tying it with Missouri. The national obesity rate was just over 20 percent.

Texas students narrowed the long-standing gap on the SAT with their counterparts across the U.S. this year as their average math and reading scores both increased slightly while national averages dropped.

What’s going on with Texas highways and railroads today? When you ask that question in Austin, the answer is money. The plain fact is—there is no money to build new roads. By 2008, all ‘gas tax’ money in Texas will pay only to maintain what we have. How did we get into this mess?

President George Bush has threatened to veto any legislation that expands SCHIP beyond $5 billion a year. Democrats in Congress, joined by a sizable group of Republicans, support funding at more than twice that level. The program will expire at the end of next month if not reauthorized by Congress and signed by the president.

Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows.

Over the decades, lawmakers have created state fees to piggyback atop traffic fines, dramatically raising violators' costs without appreciably increasing revenues for local governments.

Recently El Diario and the El Paso Times reported that 59,429 El Paso drivers and 69,730 Austin drivers have outstanding warrants for failing to pay fines for traffic violations. In El Paso and Austin, that means 11 percent of the population is wanted on warrants for traffic tickets.

How did this happen?

Many Americans are under the delusion that we have “the best health care system in the world,” as President Bush sees it, or provide the “best medical care in the world,” as Rudolph Giuliani declared last week. That may be true at many top medical centers. But the disturbing truth is that this country lags well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely and effective care.

California Initiative No. 07-0032 is an audacious power play packaged as a step forward for democratic fairness. It’s the lotusland equivalent of Tom DeLay’s 2003 midterm redistricting in Texas, except with a sweeter smell, a better disguise, and larger stakes. And the only way Californians will reject it is if they have a chance to think about it first.

How can the principle of one man, one vote be honored when the accumulation of dollars translates so readily into the accumulation of political influence? If all citizens enjoy the equal right to participate in politics with their wallets, is it possible to hold a fair election? In today’s proudly money-mad, winner-take-all economy, these questions are as urgent as ever.

Rapidly growing numbers of Hispanics are fanning out across the eastern half of the USA and settling in rural and suburban counties far from traditional immigrant strongholds, according to Census numbers released Thursday.

Denying basic health care to children whose parents lack the means to pay for it, simply because you're afraid that success in insuring children might put big government in a good light, is just morally wrong. And the public understands that.

Few of us probably know what Texas' secretary of state does, but if newly appointed Phil Wilson does the job right, he can help us benefit from stronger economic relationships with four bordering Mexican states

Lawmakers have cobbled together the agriculture, wildlife and ecolab property tax exemptions as a way to maintain green belts, open space and wildlife habitat. Today, Exxon Mobil Corp., one of the most profitable companies in the world, takes advantage of those exemptions by grazing cattle and growing trees around its old oil fields.

Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick has brought in good lawyers to fight a formal attorney general's opinion on the scope of his legislative power. The attorney general has a constitutional role to play in this dispute, and he must accept it.

TOXIC FALLOUT from the Senate's failure to enact immigration reform is drifting over the Northern Virginia suburbs. This month, Prince William County approved a resolution whose purpose is to make life unpleasant for illegal immigrants by denying them services and using local police to hound them. Now neighboring Loudoun County is moving in the same direction.