Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

More than 70 percent of Texans believe the school finance plan passed by the Legislature last year was only a "temporary Band-Aid" because all the new tax revenue was earmarked for property tax cuts instead of education, according to a new poll released Monday.

More than 5 million Texans — a daunting 26 percent — have no medical insurance. Of these, 2 million are working adults who cannot afford coverage. They are the ostensible beneficiaries of Gov. Rick Perry's proposal to subsidize private health insurance premiums.

From a robotics institute at the University of Texas at Arlington to a math and science academy at the University of North Texas, Gov. Rick Perry wants to kill nearly all of the more than $300 million that colleges receive from the state each year for special projects.

The Civil War isn't over yet. There was a flap over an old rock 'n' roller, Ted Nugent, wearing a Confederate flag shirt at Gov. Rick Perry's inaugural ball last month. And in a Jan. 29 column in this newspaper, Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson argued that for Southerners, slavery wasn't the central issue of the war.

Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday that his State of the State address on Tuesday would include a plan to fully privatize the Texas Lottery by selling it to private interests.

Just 166 women have been served by a nearly year-old state program that promotes childbirth as an alternative to abortion, Texas officials told state lawmakers Thursday. The state has spent $1.9 million on the program, which diverts money from the state's budget for family planning services, officials said.

The Texas Legislature should provide more money for state and local parks.

With apologies to Annie Get Your Gun, ever since the Republican House takeover in 2002, the Texas Legislature has become a musical comedy with one lyrical theme:
Anything government can do, business can do better.

Gov. Rick Perry's office pitched Operation Wrangler to the public as a statewide crackdown on cross-border criminals – gang members and smugglers of drugs and humans. Illegal immigrants were not targets, officials said.

Lawmakers trying to decide whether to exceed the state spending cap to pay for school tax relief say the tax break is coming whatever they do.

Schwarzenegger has proposed a universal healthcare plan for his state with a shocking amount of government intrusion into the marketplace, including strict insurance regulation, employer mandates and higher taxes. In the face of withering criticism, he is even proposing healthcare for children of illegal immigrants.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle raised doubts Friday about Gov. Rick Perry's proposal to privatize the Texas lottery, saying the state shouldn't sell off assets to meet basic budget needs.

At a time when Texas is facing a record budget surplus, Texans are paying millions of dollars in fees every year to fund a program that no longer exists.

Gov. Rick Perry is planning to tell the Legislature he wants to "sell" the state lottery to a private company when he delivers his State of the State speech next Tuesday, aides confirmed Friday.

The Texas Education Agency reports a 4.3 percent dropout rate for students in the 2005 graduating class. But researchers told the Legislature earlier this month that the figure for students who leave school without a diploma is 33 percent — and an even higher 40 percent for African Americans and Latinos.

Houston is trying to become the first place in Texas to set a standard for hazardous air pollutants, a move that would make the city stricter than the state and federal government in policing the amount of cancer-causing substances in its air.

Scientists from around the world laid out the causes and future of global climate change in a report Friday. The results suggest that Texas, with its booming population and flourishing industries, may become the victim of some of its success.

Gov. Rick Perry today is expected to announce an ambitious legislative agenda for higher education, with cash awards to colleges for each student they graduate, mandatory exit exams and an increase of about $363 million in financial aid.

With the Legislature in session, it's time for Texans to pay closer attention to our own version of earmarks: legislative riders. Most states have some form of riders, and in Texas they're far less onerous than the federal version. Thanks to a "single subject" rule, riders can't be hidden in unrelated bills, as they can in Washington. Texas riders only appear on appropriations bills.

The amount of money that Mexican immigrants sent back to their homeland hit a record $23 billion in 2006 – suggesting a greater number of workers are sending more money home.