Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

During the last days of session, my good friend Senator John Carona (R-Dallas) gave a great speech. John’s message was ‘courage’. I believe it’s a message that people will soon deliver emphatically with votes in coming elections.

Why fight against corruption? Looking at corruption as an economic issue means that corruption is more than simply a wrong behavior. It means that corruption, while benefiting a few individuals, is costly to society, the private sector, and governments in the long run.

Texas Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes told a U.S. House panel that funding for higher education is in crisis.

Fellow Texans, hasn't the time come to remake our state government so that it can more effectively deal with our 21st-century reality? Is it any wonder that in the 131 years since our Constitution was adopted, 619 amendments have been proposed to it and 440 have been adopted?

Getting startup funds for the four-year Texas Tech University medical school was the No. 1 goal for both the city and the county. After nearly three years, lawmakers approved $48 million for the school to hire staff and faculty.

The cities of El Paso, Sunland Park and Juárez all have passed resolutions against the new Asarco permit. Asarco should take the hint. It's nothing personal, but El Paso has finally outgrown the need for a polluting industry to help support its economy.

Texas should deny Asarco it's air permit. We don't want to live in a Charles Dickens novel where the populace relies on soot-caked smokestacks for its bread and butter.

On May 28, the Texas Senate passed H.B. 1, the conference report for the state budget, which includes $48 million for first and second year faculty at El Paso's medical school.

One of the best things the 80th Texas Legislature did this year before its regular session ended on Monday was to restore health insurance for an estimated 127,000 children of low-income — but working — parents, who also will face less bureaucratic tape to renew coverage. More money for the Children's Health Insurance Program was among our priorities for the Legislature.

Supposedly, the speaker of the Texas House serves at the will of the 149 other representatives who elect him or her. The current speaker, Tom Craddick, demonstrated this weekend that he serves at his will, not theirs.

A pilot program requiring licensing of boarding homes in cities that seek enhanced regulation of the facilities is headed to the governor after legislative passage Monday of a bill aimed at strengthening state oversight of board-and-care facilities.

"This budget is much, much better than the one the Senate passed on April 12. This budget adds $1.5 billion for critical new investments in CHIP, teacher pay raises, highway bonds, better parks, child protection and TEXAS Grants."

For more than a generation, Americans have been told that government is the problem, not the solution. The mantra can be traced back to Barry Goldwater’s presidential bid in 1964. It provided the mind-set for the Reagan administration, and it has come to ultimate fruition during the presidency of George W. Bush.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said he and other senators stuck to the principles laid out in the resolution passed at the congreso and as a result produced a much fairer and inclusive border security bill.

Even in a state known for its history of political theater, the meltdown surrounding a proposed voter identification measure is the stuff of melodrama. On Monday, willing to risk a threat that his body is rejecting a transplanted liver, Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr., D-Houston, returned to Austin and a hospital bed in the Senate lounge.

My grandmother came from Mexico, played by the rules, became a citizen and earned her right to vote. She didn't have a driver's license, but she had her voter registration card, went to the polls where the workers knew her, and voted. If the voter ID law were in effect, I'm not sure she or others like her could have voted.

A hospital bed near the Texas Senate chamber is an apt metaphor for the political climate in the state Legislature this year. Gallegos is in Austin in defiance of doctors' advice because the Senate Democrats need his vote to block a voter identification bill they oppose and Republicans embrace.

The federal tax on a gallon of gas has not risen in 14 years, and Congress is reluctant to increase it. States already are looking for other places for road-building money: toll road and consumption-based sales taxes, for example.

Appraisers say they're working with one hand tied behind their back. Unlike 35 states, Texas doesn't require a property's sale price to be disclosed – a key component in making accurate appraisals, officials say.

In an age of information and technology, minimum education is not enough. The fact that they have declined to act on this information shows an unbecoming indifference to their first duty: to provide a system of public education that ensures that every child learns to the best of his ability.