Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

The Texas Education Agency has exercised poor oversight of alternative certification training programs for teachers, according to a state auditor's report scheduled for release today.

At a public hearing, the state Sunset Advisory Commission is to discuss a highly critical May report that recommends changes in how DPS does its business, from a promotion policy that critics claim contributes to a chronic shortage of state troopers to the agency's intelligence gathering on terrorism.

AUSTIN — Prices aren’t the only thing skyrocketing in the state’s deregulated electricity market.

Amid continuing company failures — and the resulting forced transfer of tens of thousands of ratepayers to default electric companies — Texans in growing numbers are griping about their ill treatment by power companies.

An inexperienced science teacher with no textbooks or lab equipment. Special education students who get no special attention. Bills paid late or not at all.

Theresa B. Lee Academy, a Fort Worth charter school discovered cheating on 2005 TAKS tests, is failing in virtually every regard, according to state records.

Yet it remains open.

After a two-year investigation of voter fraud, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has only 26 minor cases of voting irregularities to show for his expenditure from a $1.4 million grant.

A U.S. Supreme Court decision paving the way for a 670-mile federal fence along the U.S.-Mexico border drew swift criticism from environmentalists, who promised to make another legal stand in Texas.

The intelligent-design movement now has a "teach the controversy" campaign against evolutionary biology. Ben Stein's recent movie, "Expelled," portrays scientists casting out anyone who questions biological orthodoxy. This movie is the most extreme application yet of the intelligent-design movement's "wedge" strategy to break the scientific community's influence over how science is taught.

State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh said that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is trying to set a precedent that would keep the public and lawmakers from accessing records that shed light on its operations.

Just what did the Department of Public Safety do - or not do - to defend the Governor’s Mansion, which almost burned to the ground on June 8 from an arsonist attack?

How did we elect government leaders whose main goal is to destroy government? In Texas, who could imagine hiring a football coach who trained his players how to lose? Well, it happened at the Capitol. Grover Norquist messed with Texas.

Lawyers for El Paso were stunned that Baker Botts would file a public document detailing what appears to be an extensive private discussion by a TCEQ commissioner in which a lobbyist could secretly rebut properly filed evidence and argument.

Recently, I wrote to EPA Administrator, Steve Johnson, to ask for answers on who will clean up the ASARCO mess in El Paso. ASARCO has declared one of the nation's largest environmental bankruptcies. By shedding environmental liabilities through a Chapter 11 filing, ASARCO is attempting to saddle taxpayers with the costs.

With every challenge comes great opportunity. Texas is taking center stage as a hub of North American trade. It shares more than two-thirds of the U.S. border with Mexico and for the sixth consecutive year, the Lone Star State has ranked first in the nation in export revenues.

The GOP presidential nominee is relying on the ex-senator who helped bring you the mortgage crisis and Rick Perry. Phil Gramm serves as co-chair of the McCain 2008 presidential campaign.

Mayor Bill White's most recent strategy to try to clean up Houston's air is to try to get TCEQ to grow a backbone in standing up to polluters. Unfortunately, it's using that backbone to take legal action not against polluters, but against Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on a Asarco's behalf.

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather delivered a blistering critique of corporate news on Saturday night at the National Conference for Media Reform hosted by Free Press.

Soaring property values in recent years swelled the coffers of counties and municipalities, raising calls for property-tax cuts. But many of these property-tax initiatives, while politically popular, mask a hidden truth: They are likely to lead to increases in other kinds of taxes.

The story of many recent teenage immigrant students is really the story of the gaps they face and who steps in to fill them – a teacher, a coach, a principal. Every year, during the first days of school, the story begins anew.

Today, UTEP is on the right track. With Ft. Bliss, the Medical Center of the Americas, international trade and transportation, downtown renewal, and UTEP—we're on the verge of the best ten years in our community’s history.

As the baby boom generation retires, America will need millions of replacement workers, and that granting work visas or permits might be smarter than building a $50 billion fence.