Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The question of what to do with such troubled juveniles highlights a growing dilemma at the Youth Commission, which increasingly is charged with caring for them.

The buzz at the Texas State Capitol, along with tougher punishment for sex offenders, TAKS reform and HPV vaccination, includes the contentious debate occurring over several anti-immigration proposals filed this session by Republican legislators.

James Leininger, the San Antonio multi-millionaire who has personally put millions into election campaigns to elect voucher supporters, has had it demonstrated to him that a considerable number of Texans simply don't think it's a good idea.

Everyone around Austin assumes you're running for governor in 2010, so let me offer some campaign advice. The race begins now, as in this Legislative session. If you don't watch it, the next few months could torpedo your chances.

Anyone who ever strolled down Home Depot's lighting aisle probably felt an uncomfortable truth: incandescent bulbs produce a lot of heat. Only recently, though, has it become widely known how much -- and at what cost to air quality and fuel savings

Will refund checks for nearly a million State Farm customers – who've already waited 3 ½ years – be in the mail anytime soon? Regulators at the Texas Department of Insurance say they're determined to make that happen ...

Key Texas Senate leaders, concerned that the investigation into the TYC scandal could unearth evidence that Rick Perry's office failed to intervene in a timely fashion, negotiated a deal two weeks ago that Perry ally Jay Kimbrough step aside and permit the Texas Rangers to take the lead in the TYC investigation.

The U.S. Justice Department is looking into complaints that supporters of a crackdown on illegal immigrants in Farmers Branch are bullying Hispanic residents and asking about their legal status in a door-to-door campaign that appears to be heating up.

Her son, Joseph, was beaten and molested — including a violent rape by a fellow inmate while a guard stood nearby — at three Texas Youth Commission facilities, Genger Galloway told a federal commission Tuesday.

The veteran lawmaker steering Gov. Rick Perry’s $100 million border security legislation through the Texas House says his bill will require local law enforcement to report undocumented immigrants to federal authorities.

Since 2002, per-student funding for pre-school education in Texas has declined by 20 percent. Given the positive relationship between pre-kindergarten education and later school success, this decrease in spending at this prime learning period should grab our attention.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis is disappointed. The Democrat from Houston was one of the architects in 1999 of the Texas Grant program, which helps students from low-income families pay tuition and fees at public colleges and universities. State funding, however, hasn't kept pace with demand.

A justice on the 13th Court of Appeals says legislation that would take “complex” litigation out of state districts courts would violate the voting rights of Hispanics in South Texas.

Gov. Rick Perry has time and again tried to increase his powers either through legislation or executive fiat. But Perry's five-year drive to add some muscle to Texas' weak governor system hit a brick wall last week.

Gov. Perry is pretty confused about the powers of the governor and the powers of the Legislature. In power struggles between the governor and the Legislature, the Legislature wins.

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

The deaths of 186 residents at state residential facilities for the mentally retarded warrant immediate legislative hearings, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Monday: "The number that have died in the last 18 months is alarming, it's terrifying to me and we're going to take a look at this."

But at this point 2004 looks like an aberration, an election won with fear-and-smear tactics that have passed their sell-by date. Republicans no longer have a perceived edge over Democrats on national security — and without that edge, they stand revealed as ideologues out of step with an increasingly liberal American public.

Studies show that low-income students often struggle academically, in part because many of them work long hours to earn money while attending classes. Ellis said he doesn't think higher education leaders have done enough to defend the Texas Grant program.

Where fraud exists, of course, it should be prosecuted and punished. Yet evidence of actual fraud by individual voters is painfully skimpy.