Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

A report issued this week by the CPPP, which advocates for programs on behalf of low- and moderate-income Texans, said that even though the state has slashed spending in recent years, the needs for those programs have not disappeared.

A state income tax could be the future for funding education in Texas, Scott McCown, director for the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said Tuesday.

Dispensing with common sense and public interest, a majority on the commission this week said public officials do not have to disclose the amounts of money given to them.

In Texas, where the state climatologist says global warming is a pressing concern, the attorney general has joined a smaller coalition of states that sides with the EPA, which says the gas is not a dangerous air pollutant.

Districts vary widely on promoting 5th-graders who flunked test.

If “surplus” means “more than we had,” the Speaker may be right. If “surplus” means “more than we need,” then, as this Policy Page explains, we do not have a surplus at all -- we are $3 billion short.

Gov. Rick Perry on Monday ordered Texas flags at state buildings lowered to half-staff Thursday and Friday in memory of former state Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio.

Republican voter disgruntlement combined with a Democratic surge in this year's elections has changed the landscape for the Legislature that convenes in January.

Is the nation really committed to guaranteeing that all of the country’s students will succeed to the same high level? And if so, how hard are we willing to work, and what resources are we willing to commit, to achieve that goal?

A day after a brutal fire ravaged Madla's South Side home, fellow lawmakers and friends said Aleena was now where she most loved to be — with her grandfather.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's Task Force on Appraisal Reform isn't as bad as some folks thought it would be. It's worse. The task force, which held its final meeting on Tuesday in Austin, is expected to issue recommendations in a report late this year.

The state's most needy residents have lost access to critical services. Taxpayers haven't saved a dollar.

Despite concerted efforts by educators, the test-score gaps are so large that, on average, African-American and Hispanic students in high school can read and do arithmetic at only the average level of whites in junior high school.

An El Paso Times analysis of reports from state border security operations shows that border sheriffs are using federal dollars meant to fight drugs and violent crime to enforce federal immigration laws.

Farmers Branch has shown itself to be a small town, not based on its population or geographic size, but because of its mean-spirited and backward attitude. These new laws are acts of bigotry.

His leadership has left Texans without the influence in Washington they need and would have had.

Two years ago, Latino voters gravitated in larger-than-ever numbers toward President Bush, the former governor of Texas, a Mexican border state, and his brother Jeb, the loquacious Florida governor who speaks fluent Spanish. How times have changed.

A controversial bill filed for the 2007 session of the Texas Legislature, one of a flurry of measures seeking crackdowns on illegal immigration, is challenging this long-held tenet of U.S. citizenship.

DeLay left a legacy in Texas. It is not worthwhile. DeLay's successful effort to enhance Republican interests by redistricting in 2003 was perhaps justified on a partisan basis. But, it was damaging to this state and our representation in Congress.

In a sign of rising passions over immigration issues, Texas lawmakers prepared for the 2007 session this week by filing a flurry of bills that would deny public assistance and other benefits to the children of illegal immigrants.