Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

In the name of "promoting childbirth," the state finds yet another way to deny health care to thousands of Texas women. The Williams' rider removed $2.5 million for each of FY 06 and FY 07 from distribution among established health-care providers – a group that includes Planned Parenthood – that traditionally have been granted the funds to provide basic health-care services for indigent and uninsured women.

The aim is to help people to move jobs as comparative advantage shifts rapidly from one activity to the next. That means less friction in labour markets and a regulatory system that helps investment. It means an education system that equips people with general skills that make them mobile.

If history is any guide, what we need are political leaders willing to tackle the big problems despite bitter partisan opposition. If all goes well, we'll eventually have a new era of bipartisanship - but that will be the end of the story, not the beginning.

Texas soon will seek federal approval for a wide-ranging experiment designed to curtail costs in Medicaid, the country's main health care program for the poor.

Texas' beloved state parks system, which entices more than 10 million visitors annually, is in deplorable condition after being severely and irrationally underfunded for years.

As budget-minded Texas leaders convene for the 80th Legislature today, they should keep one startling statistic foremost in their minds: Emergency care costs six to seven times more than preventive care.

Voters will decide in May whether they want to keep a controversial ordinance banning apartment rentals to illegal immigrants. But the city will go ahead and implement the ordinance Friday as originally planned, rather than wait on the election.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to take Texas off the hook for an 11-year-old agreement that could expand health care under Medicaid to thousands of low-income children.

Texas Democrats have pulled even with Republicans, and the state is now about half red, half blue. At least, that's according to 1,053 Texans surveyed by an independent Democratic pollster.

The number of death sentences handed out in the United States dropped in 2006 to the lowest level since capital punishment was reinstated 30 years ago, reflecting what some experts say is a growing fear that the criminal justice system will make a tragic and irreversible mistake.

Rep. Allen Ritter, D-Beaumont, has filled a bill in advance of the 2007 session to limit congressional redistricting to the session following the national census, which occurs every 10 years. The only exception would be if a court ordered it.

With Congress failing to enact comprehensive immigration reform, illegal immigrants are poised to become one of the hottest issues before the Texas Legislature.

Farmers Branch officials met with apartment managers Wednesday to lay out the city's expectations of them under the new ordinance banning apartments from renting to illegal immigrants.

To evaluate such funding requests, the 2007 Legislature should ask two questions. How much does a university's performance bring Texas? And how well does a university draw local students into the profit, rather the debit, column of Texas' future?

Farmers Branch entered the illegal immigration debate when the City Council passed the rental ordinance, along with a resolution making English the city's official language and a vote to participate in a federal program that trains police officers to act as immigration officers.

In 2005 51% of fourth-graders in big cities scored “below basic” on a standard reading test, compared with a national average of 38%. Mayors are eager to step in, well aware that bad schools not only harm students, but drive away the middle class and make cities less competitive.

At least half of all high school students in the state's major cities are dropping out of school, creating a crisis that state leaders are not doing enough to address, some education experts say.

For some, particularly those in their 50s, the future looks bleak. At 59, Paul Rotan sees little chance of finding another job with health insurance, but he is still six years away from qualifying for Medicare, the government health plan for the old. He is terrified of what will happen in June when the temporary public subsidies for his health insurance end.

Right and left, Americans and Europeans, stockmarket investors and anti-globalisation campaigners all share one belief: top managers pay themselves too much. The evidence seems to bear them out.

Texas’ public health infrastructure is crumbling under the weight of the uninsured, the Texas Border Coalition’s legislative conference was told Wednesday.