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The
Trans-Texas Corridor
This project must be stopped and it won't be if we continue to have
a Republican majority in the Texas House. Five is the minimum number
house seats we must win to have a chance to have a Democratic
Speaker of the Texas House. Stopping the Trans-Texas Corridor is a
part of the Texas Democratic Party Platform. To find it look under
Agricultural & Rural Issues.
If we continue to have a Republican Speaker and a Republican House
I'm afraid all of our efforts to stop this land grab will be a lost
cause. A Democratic House will give us a real fighting chance to
push back this project, and hopefully completely stop it. As of June
11 TxDot has stated that it will "consider" the use of existing
footprints where possible. We still must stay on top of this issue.
We are still looking at 1,200 right of way and a toll road coming
through our area. Keep informed and check in at
www.texasturf.org for
updates.
Education
High stakes testing has dominated education for years and is
frustrating, unproductive, time wasting, and a failure. We need to
use testing to make improvements in education not as a punitive
force that destroys public education. With a Masters Degree in
Education and 28 years teaching experience in public education, I am
well versed in the issues that affect Texas Public Schools. I
appreciate your support, and pledge to be a strong supporter of
public education.
Legislative Goals
for Education
1.Pay teachers as professionals. We are losing some of our best and
brightest because they can't support themselves much less a family
on current wages.
2. Increase benefits and wages for support staff so that dedicated
paraprofessionals can afford to work in our public schools.
3.Fully fund mandates so that the burden of educational expenses
doesn't penalize students because of the district they live in.
4.Revive and develop vocational programs so that students that are
not going to college can have an opportunity to make a living wage.
5.Replace high stakes testing with tools that build a successful
public school environment.
6.Freeze college tuition, and study ways to make it possible for all
college eligible students to pursue advanced educational
opportunities.
7. Help potential future teachers with the excessive expenses of
college educations.
8.Put in place programs that assist college bound students and
vocational students for at least two years past high school
graduation through our local community and Jr. colleges.
Public Education is the basis of our future
and should be supported and defended against those that would have
it fail. My father
was the superintendent of both of the public schools I attended, and
my mother is a retired teacher. I believe in public education and
will support it to the best of my ability.
Children's
Health Care
We need to increase participation in health care programs for
children. Children don't have the choice to be born into wealthy
families. We need to provide "front door" access and children's
insurance programs to keep our future insured.
Water &
Energy
In East Texas we are blessed to have water and energy. We need to
use and protect our water from outside interests, and and not
pollute it as we extract oil and gas from underground. Water and
energy are coming together, what some are beginning to call a
"water-energy nexus". This is because it takes water to produce
energy and energy to move water. As our population increases, even
with conservation, there will be increasing demands for water and
energy.
[Some information and paraphrased quotes for this paragraph appear
in the Austin American Statesman article "As states demand for water
increases, so does its appetite for power" written by Asher Price
Tuesday May 27, 2008]
Immigration
Everyone that has spent a lifetime here has seen the tremendous
surge of immigrants to our area. Do immigrants depress wages of
working East Texans? Yes. Are immigrants overloading our health care
institutions? Yes. Do we have overcrowded jails partly due to
immigration? Yes. Has immigration had an affect on our public
education system? Yes. Do we need to begin to work on this problem?
Yes. Can we depend on Washington to solve this problem? With no
major immigration legislation in 20 years we just don't know. We
need firm and fair solutions that should have already been resolved.
Hold your elected officials responsible for real solutions to this
major issue. This includes me if I'm elected.
We must also realize that there are many legal
hard working newcomers to our area also. We should not assume that
someone that looks different doesn't have the same civil rights and
right to privacy as everyone else.
Illegal immigrants especially bad characters
with criminal records should be deported or imprisoned according to
laws already on the books. There are also cases where children
through no fault of their own have lived here their entire lives,
some with documentation and some without. There are many cases of
this even in our district. We must push for legislation that doesn't
punish the innocent in this most complicated of human issues.
In the late 1980's I was privileged to teach
in the Amnesty Program of that period. It was one of the most
rewarding teaching experiences of my career. Since then however, our
federal
government has failed us in allowing illegal immigration to spiral
out of control. We must start putting pressure on all of our U.S.
Representatives and Senators take the initiative to resolve these
issues.
We on the state level must begin to address
these problems also.
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