Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

There is another reality at play here. And that is the fact that most of these bills represent futile gestures. If the legislators want to effect change, they should lobby the people who can bring it about — their federal counterparts.

Women undergoing an abortion in Texas would be required to have a sonogram first under a bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday over protests from critics who say the measure is meant to harass those women.

More police chiefs from South Texas have come out against key aspects of HB 13, the $100 million border security legislation supported by the House leadership and Gov. Rick Perry.

A prestigious scientific panel urged the government yesterday to ban soft drinks, sugary snacks and other junk food from schools.

A South Texas lawmaker who led a panel investigating blunders associated with the privatization of health care eligibility processing says Health and Human Services Commissioner Albert Hawkins has still not been held accountable.

In Texas, the biggest problem facing our electoral system is the voters' shamefully low participation in choosing our representatives and leaders. Yet, . . . some lawmakers in Austin are hard at work trying to make it more difficult to vote.

Having to counter a number of anti-immigrant bills on the House floor these past few days, members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus are asking if House leaders have designated this week Bash the Border Week.

By year's end an estimated 3 million of them will lose their homes. Disproportionately, they will be black and Latino, an unfortunate effect of the marketing practices of subprime brokers and lenders.

High-security driver's licenses aimed at letting U.S. citizens return from Canada without a passport could be adopted elsewhere if Washington state's experiment works, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday.

In using California's formal errors in their mandated bilingual education program, Texas policymakers and bilingual education critics can learn from programs that have failed despite their attempts to improve bilingual education for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students.

No matter which way the vote goes, there's no papering over the raw ugliness exposed by the emotional debate over the presence of illegal immigrants in this one suburban city.

Scientists said Texas has reached or exceeded its maximum annual average temperature and must adapt to changes that are inevitable but not predictable.

At the first news about the [TYC] "abuse cover-up" scandal at the Youth Commission, I had no hesitation: Our families and community expect and deserve safe and humane treatment for our children.

In a direct challenge to Gov. Rick Perry, a House committee approved legislation Monday demanding new, outside management to rehabilitate the scandal-wracked Texas Youth Commission.

Although once it seemed almost certain that the Texas Legislature was headed for a bruising showdown over illegal immigration, a key lawmaker signaled Monday that the place for that battle is a national stage.

The number of students in Texas dropping out of school each year is staggering. And the frightening part is that the Texas Education Agency either does not know the magnitude of the problem, or worse, is intentionally hiding it.

Battered by a sexual abuse scandal in its juvenile justice system, Texas may soon free most of the 4,000 jailed youths who have served their minimum sentences but who are still being held, in many cases for reasons that are undetermined.

The ACLU says that while next Wednesday’s State Affairs
Committee hearing on border security will likely grab much attention, a key border bill being heard by another panel on Monday should not be overlooked.

State's Accenture effort was a huge failure. A program that was supposed to save the state millions of dollars and enhance services to needy Texans did exactly the opposite.

A chain of administrative failures, executive inattention and bureaucratic missteps brought TYC this institutional collapse. State government records, legislative archives and interviews with current and former officials show a breakdown of authority at all levels.