Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Hispanics may have been deeply alienated by the heated rhetoric that wound around the axle of the debate, most of it stemming from a few Republican opponents and the loud echo chamber of talk radio.

As the nation struggles to improve medical and mental health care for military personnel returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, about 1.8 million U.S. veterans under age 65 lack even basic health insurance or access to care at Veterans Affairs hospitals, a new study has found.

Gov. Rick Perry has booted TEA's top boss, Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley. And now Chief Deputy Commissioner Robert Scott, the governor's long-time confidant and adviser on education issues and the real power behind the throne at TEA, has been accused by the agency's inspector general of steering lucrative, no-bid contracts to his friends and an inner circle of ex-TEA employees.

Community college leaders say they'll be forced to cut services such as remedial instruction or raise tuition or taxes after Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a portion of their state funds.

Gov. Rick Perry has signed a new law that allows Texas families to prepay college tuition costs for the first time since 2003 — and with greater flexibility in purchases. But if it catches on, the Texas Tomorrow Fund II, which will open in 2008, could wind up pushing prices higher for future low-income students, according to some experts.

Eighty-two public pensions in Texas have unfunded liabilities totaling $23 billion, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Monday, as he called for stricter oversight of the funds that provide retirement benefits to more than two million Texans.

In West Africa, ‘dash’ means ‘pay me.’ It’s corruption. When a guy in a uniform has an AK47, he gets some attention, especially when he’s had a few rounds of palm wine. Early in life I learned a lesson in fighting corruption, we must act, all of us. When old-timers say—‘it’s always been that way’, then we need to say ‘it’s time to change’.

Best of Session Photo Gallery

As the Houston area struggles to deal with a rising tide of uninsured, it offers a lesson for the nation: Let the problem get out of hand — to a point where nearly 1 in 3 people have no coverage — and you won't just have a less healthy population. You'll have an overwhelmed health care system.

"We're running the risk of Texas becoming a state haven for bad doctors," said Alex Winslow, spokesman for Texas Watch, an Austin consumers group that is tracking the licensing of doctors new to Texas. "Instead of improving healthcare for patients, it is getting even more dangerous for Texans."

Child Protective Services is spending $345 a night per child – at least double the cost of the most expensive therapeutic foster care – to house abused children in state offices, and there is no end in sight for the shortage of suitable foster homes, officials said Monday.

The board is fulfilling its increased watchdog role, spokeswoman Jill Wiggins said, but no organization can eliminate the possibility of medical errors. "There are always individuals who are not getting the kind of satisfaction they want," she said.

Texas' healthcare system ranks among the worst in the nation, in large part because so many Texans go without health insurance.

Four years ago, Texas limited how much patients could win in a medical malpractice lawsuit. Doctors have seen their costs fall for liability insurance as malpractice insurance companies return to the state and to profitability. There is no evidence of savings to Texas consumers, however.

More than 7,000 Texas college students and graduates are in limbo because of their illegal status. They were able to continue their education thanks to a state law that allowed them to pay in-state tuition. But they cannot enter the workforce as professionals.

We have all seen the headlines over the past months. These events cause us all great concern. The people of El Paso—law-abiding, tax-paying citizens—deserve better. We vote for and expect ethical and transparent government.

What are the political—and policy—implications of this rethinking of the roots of income inequality? Too often, economists have argued that the government can’t—and shouldn’t—do much to reverse the growth of income inequality, beyond exhorting workers to get more skills and education. But given the institutional factors at work, that may be a cop-out.

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here's an update . . .

The landmark Plyler vs. Doe decision guaranteed illegal immigrants a free public education and established their civil rights and equal protection of the law under the 14th Amendment. It is absent from Texas history lessons. People in Tyler rarely speak of it.

At 7:22 A.M., as Lincoln drew his last breath, all the worthies who had crowded into a little back bedroom in a boarding house across the street from Ford’s Theater turned to Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s formidable Secretary of War, for a final word: “Now he belongs to the ages.”