Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Latino voters could play a key role in deciding the outcome of several key 2010 political races across the country, including the Texas gubernatorial contest, a new report released Monday by liberal groups concluded.

Project Bravo will begin its Green Affordable Housing project today in Montana Vista.

The group will mark the construction of the first green affordable home in the area.

"Minus Twenty" -- forecast for El Paso?"

Minus twenty sounds like the temperature in the Arctic.

So what does it mean in Texas?

Texans want to leave a cleaner, healthier state for their children and grandchildren to enjoy. Despite this, Texas' air and water are amongst some of the dirtiest in the nation. Texas is first in the nation in air pollution emissions, the amount of cancer-causing carcinogens released into the air, and the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. It's second in the amount of hazardous waste generated and seventh in the amount of carcinogens released into the water. We have a governor and environmental agency that prides itself in opposing increased air standards that would save both lives and money.

Here in Texas, tax cuts are king. Over the last few sessions, reforms to school finance focused on reducing property taxes—not better funding for public schools. In the end, school property tax rates were cut by 33 percent, the revenue base shifted to more regressive consumption taxes, and all new revenue was dedicated to more tax cuts—not schools. Now, built into the upcoming budget is a structural deficit of $5.8 billion by 2010-11.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is dead, flat broke. By 2012, TxDOT will have no money for new roads. Zero. What’s worse is that TXDOT is now robbing Peter to pay Paul. Last month, commissioners diverted maintenance money to new roads to cover accounts for 2010. In other words, TXDOT is now diverting from TXDOT.

In December, the Justice Department announced a settlement in one of the largest environmental bankruptcies in U.S. history.

The American Smelting and Refining Company, known as Asarco, will pay a record $1.79 billion to settle claims for hazardous waste pollution at 80 sites in as many as 20 states.

Cleanup will begin this year on one of Asarco's most notorious properties — the copper smelter in El Paso, Texas.

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

AUSTIN – Texas motorists charged with certain driving violations owe the state more than $1 billion in surcharges, and many of the 1.2 million people on the unpaid list are driving without valid licenses and at risk of arrest.

HANDS down, the State of the Union’s big moment was Barack Obama’s direct hit on the delicate sensibilities of the Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The president was right to blast the 5-to-4 decision giving corporate interests an even greater stranglehold over a government they already regard as a partially owned onshore subsidiary. How satisfying it was to watch him provoke Alito into a “You lie!” snit. Here was a fight we could believe in.

Texas "Pay Toilet?"

From 1947 to 1977, General Electric released wastewater contaminated with PCBs into the Hudson River from plants located in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward, New York. In 1976, when scientific and medical data indicated that PCBs were carcinogenic, Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which outlawed the manufacture, processing and use of PCBs.

In America today, the real test of leadership is whether things get done. When people measure public servants, the basic question is the one that Ronald Reagan posed when running against Jimmy Carter—“whether tomorrow will be better than today”.

Grover Norquist once boasted about the need to shrink government so “small” it could be drowned in the bathtub. Here is the Norquist recipe: Tax cuts for the wealthy, plus budget cuts for state programs, plus hostility to responsible governance equals Grover’s Tub. Good governance was in Grover’s view, the enemy—and destroying it was Grover’s goal.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh is headed into court this afternoon fighting for documents from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality that he says will show the agency is little but a lapdog for polluters.

The role of a host is to be gracious, even to a would-be guest who spurns an invitation. Gov. Rick Perry says he won’t spend any time between now and the March 2 primary election talking with either the Star-Telegram Editorial Board or that of any other Texas newspaper. Although disappointed, we accept his decision.

A pivotal Republican primary for the State Board of Education has drawn an unusual amount of interest and money from some prominent business leaders.

The support has helped the challenger in the District 5 race, Tim Tuggey, take a substantial fundraising lead over incumbent Ken Mercer, a member of the board's conservative bloc. District 5 includes southern Travis County, northern Bexar County and 11 other Central Texas counties.

Arkansas' attorney general says he's sued a company that operates an online payday lending site that provides quick loans with triple-digit interest rates.

A state senator's pursuit of documents he believes will lead to a criminal investigation of senior staff members of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is now in the hands of an appeals court that heard arguments Wednesday about whether the records should be public.

"If the current relationships between minority status and educational attainment, occupations of employment, and wage and salary income do not change in the future from those existing in 1990, the future workforce of Texas will be less educated, more likely to be employed in lower-level state occupations and earning lower wages and salaries than the present workforce."
- former Texas State Demographer Dr. Steve Murdock

What about debtors’ prisons here in Texas? Actually, debtors’ prisons have a long history here—and now, they are back.

Following the Texas revolution in 1836, the new Republic of Texas advertised in east coast papers to lure debtors here. As a new nation, on the frontier with Mexico, Sam Houston and others feared that Santa Ana might return, so young Texas did everything possible to lure debtors here—to settle, thrive and defend Texas.