Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has Texas-size problems with General Motors Corp.'s plans for its car dealerships after bankruptcy.

Texas teachers are no doubt looking forward to the salary increase that legislators promised them this session. But what they likely don't know is that the federal government could pull the rug from under them.

ab for special session will be more than $30,000 per day

Gov. Rick Perry announced last week that he is calling lawmakers back to Austin for a special session. While legislators wait for the governor to tell them what they will be doing, one question is already being debated: Who’s to blame?

In her first term in the Senate in 1993, Jane Nelson admittedly had limited qualifications for her appointment to the Health and Human Services Committee.

Amy Simpson is preparing to teach her first college class, but she'll be teaching it at North Garland High School.

Hurting fish, may harm humans, say
experts

Behind the open brawling over how to rebuild the nation's health care system, another struggle is beginning to erupt: Who should pay the eye-popping bill?

As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.

NRG Energy Inc. (NRG) and its solar-power development partner eSolar said Thursday that they plan to build a 92-megawatt solar-thermal power plant in New Mexico under contract with El Paso Electric Co. (EE).

Leo Berman has four conditions for dropping out of the GOP gubernatorial race — two of them involving states’ rights and two anti-immigration.

Legislation on Perry's desk requires universities to bill students' insurance companies.

Congress appears ready to confront one of the nation’s most contentious issues — health care reform — and arguments will fill the air in the coming months.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh has asked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to prepare for a new South Texas Border Initiative in order to boost access to higher education along the border.

The Legislature adjourned its 140-day regular session June 1 without passing key "sunset" bills that would have kept important state agencies running, including the transportation and insurance departments and the Texas Racing Commission.

“That is one of the issues that will be addressed during the interim,” Straus said, at a breakfast meeting with members of the Capitol press corps on Tuesday. “I’ve already spoken to advocates for expanding the CHIP program. We are going to make every effort to make sure it receives the attention it deserves.”

The image of the rich Texan overshadows the reality of poverty that stalks all sections of the state. Texas officials are reluctant to admit that people go hungry in a state that celebrates the richness and diversity of its food. Yet there is no denying Texans go hungry — especially children. According to data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly one in four Texas children under 5 are what federal officials call food insecure — awkward nomenclature for not being able to count on a consistent supply of healthy food.

Behind the scenes, efforts to recruit candidates to run for the Legislature are under way, potentially targeting local lawmakers who didn’t back the local-option transportation funding measure that North Texas officials spent nearly a quarter-million dollars lobbying for.

State Sen. Elliott Shapleigh, D-El Paso, had a different take: With this budget, the gorgeous state of Texas once again is jostling for the crown in the Miss False Economy Pageant, likely again to spend less per capita on human services than any other state.

First, the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services (DADS), the operator of the residential facilities, found itself a federal target when it was named in December in a scathing U.S. Department of Justice report on the condition of state schools.