Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Lawmakers have responded to brutal beating deaths of foster children with tentative decisions to hire hundreds more state workers and ease off on a big push for privatization at Child Protective Services.

The real question is this—what does S.B. 1 do? Does the budget pay for the needs of Texas? Will Texas grow and prosper because we wisely invested the people’s money? When the El Paso Times runs a series on poverty in our region, what investments made today will help end poverty tomorrow?

Let’s visit about my vote on Senate Bill 1, the budget bill.

The budget for general revenue — the state dollars that lawmakers can spend however they choose — actually decreased about 1.3 percent per year from 2000 to 2006 when adjusted for population growth and inflation, the budget board's figures show.

The border region is funneling more money to more prosperous parts of the state as a result of the property tax cuts, a state budget expert says. Dick Lavine, senior fiscal analyst for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said because the border has a disproportionate number of lower income families, it is most heavily burdened by Texas’s regressive tax system.

There are signs the justice system makes mistakes. We don't know for sure, but we do know that if the state made a mistake, nothing can rectify it. And that uncomfortable truth has led this editorial board to re-examine its century-old stance on the death penalty.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, says the children of Texas were the big issue when the Senate’s version of the budget came up for a vote last Thursday, not his city’s four-year medical school. Shapleigh made the statement after an eye-catching and rather misleading headline in the El Paso Times – “Senate OKs med funds; Shapleigh against measure.”

A shareholder with the law firm that used to employ Jack Abramoff was highly offended that the disgraced former political lobbyist was mentioned at a legislative hearing.

Child Protective Services was looking for Valerie Lopez. The agency knew her baby daughter had been injured and that the 19-year-old mother had a record of abuse. Yet more than two months went by without a single CPS caseworker stopping by her South Side triplex to find her.

Ed Owens effectively became the Texas Youth Commission czar Friday, vested with total power to rebuild an agency in administrative disarray and unable to guarantee the safety of youth in its custody.

s lawmakers and the governor dismantle and investigate the scandal-wracked agency that runs the state's juvenile prisons, bitter inmates and employees emerge with accounts of institutionalized vengeance.

The governing board of the scandal-racked Texas Youth Commission today unanimously approved a 24-point reform plan for the agency, mandating sweeping administrative and policy changes and likely a management shakeup.

Though privatization was supposed to save the state money and improve services for families, thousands of the most vulnerable Texans were wrongly denied benefits and the state didn't save a dime.

A state effort to replace many welfare benefits offices with privately run call centers fell victim to unrealistic deadlines, budget cuts, stumbles by the contractor, a flawed public education campaign and mishaps with government-purchased computer software.

Legal immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in Texas and across the country are applying for U.S. citizenship in record numbers – driven by the growing anti-immigrant sentiment across the country, legislative proposals that crack down on legal and illegal immigrants, and a proposed jump in fees.

When [our state leaders are] ready to address the real, substantial problems of Texas children, and to find the money to do so, we can begin to take them at their word that they really give a damn about the state's most vulnerable citizens.

A South Texas juvenile corrections facility run by the Texas Youth Commission is so "chaotic and dangerous" that it violates the constitutional rights of the youth incarcerated there, the U.S. Justice Department told state officials Thursday.

As Texas begins what one lawmaker likened to divorce proceedings with Accenture LLP, members of a House panel questioned the state's health and human services chief Thursday on how Texas will avoid a repeat of the same problems.

Both sides of the debate about illegal immigration repeatedly make assertions that are not based in fact.

A bankrupt copper giant facing billions of dollars in pollution claims across the nation pretended for years to recycle metals while illegally burning hazardous waste in a notorious El Paso smelter, according to a newly released Environmental Protection Agency document.

It shouldn't have taken 14 years to conclude a major lawsuit against the state for failing to meet its obligations to children covered by the Medicaid program, which provides medical care for the state's poorest residents. Still, the proposed settlement appears reasonable.